Dec 30, 2009

Memoirs of a Geisha | Summary

Translator’s Note and Chapters 1–3
The novel opens with a prefatory chapter written by a fictitious professor of Japanese history named Jakob Haarhuis. He explains that the book is the result of his interviews with a retired geisha named Sayuri.

Chapter 1 opens in the first-person voice of Sayuri, which will be sustained throughout the entire novel. She tells about her childhood in the small fishing village of Yoroido, where she (then called “Chiyo”), her older sister (Satsu), and her parents live a simple life. When Chiyo is nine and her sister is fifteen,...