Arthur Golden

Arthur Golden grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then attended Harvard College, where he received a B.A. in art history with a specialization in Japanese art. In 1980, he earned an M.A. in Japanese history from Columbia University. After a summer at Peking University in Beijing, China, he began working in Tokyo. While there, he met a man whose mother was a retired geisha, prompting his interest in the subject. After returning to the United States in the mid-1980s, Golden began writing his first novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, which took him six years to complete. A runaway success, the novel was on the New York Times’ bestseller list for over two years, sold more than four million copies, and was translated into thirty-two languages. Golden currently lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with his wife and two children.