Reception
Although Masuda finished second in the writing competition, after writing Autobiography of a Geisha she was harshly criticized by her community, and eventually had to move to another town. Largely because of this, she almost always communicated with people through her publisher, emphasizing that her goal was only to tell her story and never to become famous, and refused to meet with most people interested in discussing her book. Upon its translation into English, the book received positive reviews from Liza Dalby and Arthur Golden as well as several book reviewers.
Despite several academic reviews, the book has been strangely ignored in many publications about geisha. In her autobiography Geisha, a Life (also known as Geisha of Gion), published in 2002, Mineko Iwasaki claims to be the first geisha to come forward to tell her story. Many scholars echo this claim despite the fact that Masuda’s work was published 45 years before Iwasaki’s.
Read more about this topic: Autobiography Of A Geisha
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)