Author Bio
• Birth—1956
• Where—Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard; M.A., Columbia University; M.A.,
Boston College
• Currently—lives in Brookline, Massachusetts
A member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family (owners of the New York Times), Golden was educated at the Baylor School (then a boys-only school for day and boarding students) in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He attended Harvard College and received a degree in art history, specializing in Japanese art. In 1980, he earned an M.A. in Japanese history at Columbia University, and also learned Mandarin Chinese. After a summer at Beijing University, he worked in Tokyo. When he returned to the United States, he earned an M.A. in English at Boston University. He currently lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
After its release in 1997, Memoirs of a Geisha spent two years on The New York Times bestseller list. It has sold more than four million copies in English and has been translated into thirty-two languages around the world.
The novel Memoirs of a Geisha was written after interviewing a number of geisha, including Mineko Iwasaki, for background information about the world of the geisha, although Golden fictionalized key aspects of Geiko life including the notion that they participated in ritualized prostitution.
After the Japanese edition of Memoirs of a Geisha was published, Arthur Golden was sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by Iwasaki. The plaintiff claimed that Golden had agreed to protect her anonymity, if she told him about her life as a geisha due to the traditional code of silence about their clients. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
In 2005, Memoirs of a Geisha was made into a feature film starring Ziyi Zhang and Ken Watanabe, and directed by Rob Marshall, garnering three Academy Awards. (From Wikipedia.)