For most students, a failing grade in the first-year rite of passage Expository Writing marks the end of a literary career. Not so for Arthur Golden ’78, who overcame this obstacle to author the wildly successful novel Memoirs of a Geisha, which remained on The New York Times Best-Seller List for more than a year.

The book follows the poignant story of the young, light-eyed daughter of a poor Japanese fisherman who is sold into slavery in a Geisha house in distant Kyoto.

Memoirs captivated readers through the seductive first person voice of Sayuri as she is trained in the arts of the geisha—dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup and hair; pouring sake in a way designed to beguile; competing with a jealous rival for men’s attention—and the money that goes with it.

Golden breathed life into this exotic world with his capacity for empathy, attention to historical detail and an obsession with accuracy—both in the development of his characters and their surroundings.

The seeds of Memoirs were sewn during Golden’s time as an undergraduate at Harvard, where he acquired a grounding in Japanese art, language and culture which led to many more years of scholarship.

“I really think that the scholar in college was father of the man,” says Professor Emeritus John. M. Rosenfield, a mentor of Golden’s from his college days.

Attracted by the dynamic personality of this distinguished Japanese art scholar, Golden says he chose to concentrate in Japanese art history as an undergraduate.

“I studied Japanese art for two principle reasons,” Golden says. “One was that I really liked Professor Rosenfield. He made a university as big and sometimes as overwhelming as Harvard almost like a small college. The other reason was because I was very interested in the language.”

After Harvard, Golden went on to earn an M.A. in Japanese history from Columbia University in 1980 and later an M.A. in English from Boston University.

Despite his choice of academic pursuits, Golden says he prefers Western art to Japanese. “I find Japanese art beautiful, but a little remote,” he says. “I feel that way about the culture generally.”

But this remoteness could not keep Golden from penning a novel whose 320 pages penetrate to the core of Japanese culture.

Family Matters

Memoirs may have catapulted Golden into overnight fame, but his road to success was a long one. It took him 10 years and three drafts to produce Memoirs, he says, which has now been printed in 21 languages, with four million copies in English.

As a member of the Sulzberger family, the press dynasty which controls the New York Times, writing is in Golden’s blood. But he rejected the family formula for success when he declined to go into journalism, choosing the unfamiliar route of fiction instead.

“My grandmother didn’t understand; she thought I had made a terrible mistake,” Golden says. “One time I gave her a story I had written. She said, ‘I read your story—have you ever considered going into business?’ I laughed and said, ‘Granny, are you saying that because of the story or in spite of it?’ She laughed back and said, ‘Both, I guess.’”