The U-Daily News is reporting news that I am sure many will be excited to learn that after years in development hell – with at least three directors attached to the project at various points – Memoirs of a Geisha is finally on for a September production start under the direction of Rob Marshall. Final casting is under way, including that of the title character, Nitta Sayuri, as a beautiful child, for the part of the story in which she is taken from her home in a poor Japanese fishing village and sold into slavery at a geisha house, circa 1929.
As noted in the story casting is still not final, but if you would like to check out the national best seller before it hits theaters, most likely sometime in 2005, click here to order your own copy.
Amazon.com describes the book by Arthur Golden as a literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan’s most celebrated geisha.
Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. We witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup, and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men’s solicitude and the money that goes with it.
In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl’s virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction–at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful–and completely unforgettable.
