Golden based the book on interviews he conducted in 1992 with
Mineko Iwasaki, a retired
geisha who had been the geisha equivalent of a superstar in the 1960s and 1970s, who was even hired by the government to entertain guests like the Queen of Great Britain.
A few days ago, Iwasaki filed a lawsuit against Golden and his publisher, on two points:
- She claims she had only agreed to the interviews because she was promised anonymity, and Golden broke that promise by naming her in the acknowledgements of the book.
- She says Golden stained her personal honor by wrongly implying or outright stating that like the main character in the book, she had also been sold into a geisha house by her parents and that her virginity had ben auctioned in a mizuage ceremony.
In general, Iwasaki says the book vastly overemphasizes the sexual aspect of the geisha trade, especially by failing to make the distinction between the "real" geisha, who are mainly very high-class entertainers, and prostitutes trying to profit from their mystique by calling themselves geisha.
She has stated that she will use her friends and contacts to prevent the making of a movie based on the book (which is planned to be directed by Steven Spielberg) and will write her memoirs to correct the image presented in the book.