Kimono

A wonderful book by the best-selling author of Geisha and Tale of Murasaki on the kimono and the fashioning of culture in Japan.

She offers a tour of the cultural collisions that have become part of the fabric not just of the kimono but of modern Japan. It is a tour well worth taking

An impressive, unusual and beautiful book. There are many valuable insights here – not only about Japanese clothing but also about patterns of gender, class and identity in Japanese culture

Joseph J. Tobin, author of 'Re-Made in Japan'

A lively, informative study of the kimono, tracing its evolution throughout Japanese history to its current status as the national dress of Japan… At once scholarly and enjoyable reading

Liza Dalby is an anthropologist specialising in Japanese culture and the only Westerner to have become a geisha. She is the author of The Tale of Murasaki, Geisha and consulted on Steven Spielberg's film of Memoirs of a Geisha. She lives in California with her husband and three children.

In this beautifully written and lavishly illustrated book Liza Dalby traces the history of the kimono - its designs, uses, aesthetics and social significance. 
 
The colourful and stylised kimono, the national garment of Japan, expresses not only Japanese fashion and design taste but also reveals something of the soul of Japan, and is seen by many as a symbol for all that is Japanese - simplicity, elegance and beauty. Amazingly beautiful, the kimono has gone through many changes in the centuries since it was first imported from China, changes that reflect the way that Japanese society has also developed over the ages.

Geisha

In this insightful and revealing classic bestseller, American anthropologist Liza Dalby recounts her experiences living as a geisha in Kyoto - a must-read for anyone fascinated by Japanese culture.

Liza Dalby, as the only foreigner to ever have become an actual geisha, knows more about the subject than I'll ever know, and she writes about it with grace and eloquence

Arthur Golden, author of 'Memoirs of a Geisha'

A loving, beautifully designed tribute to one of Japan's most tantalising traditions... Geisha offers intriguing glimpses into Japanese politics, culture and history

The authoritative work on the geisha. It is filled with facts and history, shot through with insights and understanding. Her working as a geisha, her experiencing their world, is responsible for the breadth of her understanding

Elegantly balanced...beautifully constructed...invigorating and refreshing

A meticulously researched work of scholarship, but is also a delightfully personal account of Dalby's year among the geisha. Geisha remains [Dalby's] best-known work and is the bible of geisha studies to this day

Liza Dalby, author of The Tale of Murasaki, is the only non-Japanese woman ever to have become a geisha. This is her unique insight into the extraordinary, closed world of the geisha, a world of grace, beauty and tradition that has long fascinated and enthralled the West. Taking us to the heart of a way of life normally hidden from the public gaze, Liza Dalby shows us the detailed reality that lies behind the bestselling Memoirs of a Geisha and opens our eyes to an ancient profession that continues to survive in today's modern Japan.

Liza Dalby

The Tale of Murasaki brings vividly to life the fascinating eleventh-century world of the creator of Japan's enduring masterpiece, Tale of Genji

Enter the exotic, entrancing world of the Japanese Imperial court...for a gentle immersion in a world of long ago and far away, The Tale of Murasaki is just the ticket...hypnotic

Luscious, lush and languorously elegant... You feel you are breathing the air of 11th-century Japan

Captivating... The Tale of Murasaki gets the big things right, including, indispensably, the dark undercurrent of sadness running below the bright, embroidered surface... All this, and much more, rings so true to the created milieu of Genji that one is inclined to indulge Dalby in all she has dreamed or imagined

An amazing feat... Anyone already an enthusiast either of Tale of Genji or of Arthur Golden’s wonderful Memoirs of a Geisha will already be running to the bookstore for this book... A wonderful accomplishment

Liza Dalby is not just a remarkable scholar of Japan – she is a keen storyteller

In a wonderful world shaped by beauty and poetry, ancient traditions and popular intrigue, a young woman at the centre of the eleventh-century Japanese imperial court observes the exotic world around her. Murasaki sees everything, the Emperor and Empress, aristocrats and concubines, warriors and servants, her own family. She records a remarkable place of political and sexual plotting, male power and female manipulation, as she writes the Tale of Genji, the masterpiece of Japanese literature.

Liza Dalby

Praise for The Tale Of Murasaki

The Tale of Murasaki brings vividly to life the fascinating eleventh-century world of the creator of Japan's enduring masterpiece, Tale of Genji

Enter the exotic, entrancing world of the Japanese Imperial court...for a gentle immersion in a world of long ago and far away, The Tale of Murasaki is just the ticket...hypnotic

Luscious, lush and languorously elegant... You feel you are breathing the air of 11th-century Japan

The Tale of Murasaki brings vividly to life the fascinating eleventh-century world of the creator of Japan's enduring masterpiece, Tale of Genji

Enter the exotic, entrancing world of the Japanese Imperial court...for a gentle immersion in a world of long ago and far away, The Tale of Murasaki is just the ticket...hypnotic

Luscious, lush and languorously elegant... You feel you are breathing the air of 11th-century Japan

The Tale of Murasaki brings vividly to life the fascinating eleventh-century world of the creator of Japan's enduring masterpiece, Tale of Genji

Enter the exotic, entrancing world of the Japanese Imperial court...for a gentle immersion in a world of long ago and far away, The Tale of Murasaki is just the ticket...hypnotic

Luscious, lush and languorously elegant... You feel you are breathing the air of 11th-century Japan

Books by Liza Dalby

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