Liza Crihfield Dalby is an Americananthropologist and novelist specializing in Japanese culture. Her book Geisha (filmed as American Geisha) is based on her experience as a novice geisha in Japan. Her other books include Kimono: Fashioning Culture, a critique of the symbolism and cultural meaning of kimono in Japanese culture; and a novel The Tale of Murasaki, the fictionalized account of the life of Murasaki Shikibu. She served as a consultant for the 2005 movie Memoirs of a Geisha starring Zhang Ziyi. See Anthropology. ... Women dressed as maiko (apprentice geisha) in Kyoto, Japan Geisha (芸者 person of the arts) are traditional Japanese artist-entertainers. ... Japanese woman in a kimono, ca. ... Murasaki Shikibu (紫 式部 Murasaki Shikibu, c. ... Movie poster of Memoirs of a Geisha Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by Arthur Golden published in 1997. ... Zhang Ziyi @ Cannes 2005 Zhang Ziyi as Mei in House of Flying Daggers Zhang Ziyi as Moon in Hero This is a Chinese name; the family name is Zhang. ...
She is a graduate of Swarthmore and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University. See: Swarthmoor Hall, historic Quaker site in Cumbria, England Swarthmore College, Liberal arts college in Pennsylvania Swarthmore, Pennsylvania This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... For other meanings of Stanford, see Stanford (disambiguation). ...
Works
Dalby, Liza Crihfield (1983). Geisha. University of California Press. ISBN 0520047427.
Dalby, Liza Crihfield (1993). Kimono: fashioning culture. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300056397.
She is currently married to actor and novelist David Preston.
LizaDalby took the name Ichigiku and apprenticed in the famed Pontocho district, trailing behind "older sisters" bemused by this long-legged Westerner intent on learning their arts and customs.
Dalby did not elaborate much on her experiences leads me to believe that she didn't have many experiences and was not taken very seriously as a geisha at all.
Dalby adresses the paradox that the women considered the most servile in Japan are also those with the most freedom, and by the time the book is finished it's no longer a paradox, really.
Dalby offers a carefully researched history of kimono, mouth-watering excerpts from a seventeenth-century Japanese fashion magazine, interviews with modern kimono wearers, and illustrations that are informative rather than blandly pretty.
Dalby deftly dissects the subtle differences-the length of a sleeve, the placement of a collar-that proclaim a woman's age, class, marital status, and personal taste.
Dalby writes about the look and feel of kimono with the authority of personal experience; while researching her doctoral dissertation in a geisha community in Kyoto (the basis of her previous book, Geisha), she wore kimono every day.
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