– An abusive older sister: While Hatsumomo in the book is simply a senior geisha in Sayuri’s okiya, she is based on Mineko’s real-life sister Yaeko. Some of the items from the novel that are said to have happened to Ms. Golden for defamation as she claimed that many of the events in his story were taken from her own life and then twisted into a prostitution narrative. As such, the book sold poorly in Japan and was mostly ignored until Mineko Iwasaki sued Mr. Golden bent the truth and added in parts about geisha selling sex like prostitutes.
However, in order to sell more copies and to make it more sensational Mr. Golden had spoken with her on the assurance that his book would be an accurate representation of the geisha profession, and upon its release in 1997, it became an international bestseller. Upon trying to do the research he stumbled upon a person who could introduce him to the most famous geisha of the 20th century: Mineko Iwasaki. In the early 1990s, Arthur Golden set out to write a novel about a topic that he had no previous background knowledge or study in. Also, Mineko Iwasaki was uncomfortable with the way Arthur Golden (the author) portrayed geisha as if they are Japanese courtesans. Surprisingly, not the plot, but some characters in the book resembled some of the real characters in Mineko Iwasaki’s life that she shared with the author in a private conversation.
However, a real geisha, named Mineko Iwasaki, sued the author of the book because of defamation.
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