Madame Sadayakko : The Geisha Who Seduced The West By Lesley Downer

"At twenty-nine, she captivated the world's stage. The crowned heads of Europe vied for her favors. Picasso sketched her portrait. Puccini based the title character of Madame Butterfly on her and borrowed one of her haunting melodies. Gide, Debussy, Degas, and Rodin were among her devoted fans. She was Sadayakko, Japan's most notorious geisha - and its first international superstar." "Drawing from meetings with Sadayakko's family members, including her granddaughter, who granted rare access, and others who knew her intimately, this noted geisha expert chronicles the pivotal moments of Sadayakko's dramatic life. As an exquisite young geisha, her virginity was sold for an exorbitant amount to the prime minister, Japan's most powerful man. She shocked the Tokyo geisha world when she left her lucrative career to become the wife of the rebellious - and penniless - actor and political maverick Otojiro Kawakami. He took her to the United States, where posters and crowds hailed her arrival, and to Europe, where she became the toast of Paris, a muse to writers and artists, and an influence on women's fashion." Madame Sadayakko tells the story of an unlikely rebel who carved out her own path, and reveals a missing piece of history from the turn of the last century, when Japanese women were wearing bustles and learning the waltz and European women were wearing Sadayakko kimonos.