A girl is sold out of a fishing village and trained in Kyoto, narrated as a memoir from the far side of a life she did not choose.
The detail is extraordinary and the framing has been argued about ever since, including by the woman whose account the book drew on. Worth knowing that going in.
What it does well is make the economics explicit. Debt, patronage, the auction, the arithmetic underneath something presented as artistry.
Read November 1999.
