Liza Dalby

Liza Crihfield Dalby (born 1950) is an

American anthropologist and novelist
specializing in Japanese culture. For her
graduate studies, Dalby studied and
performed fieldwork in Japan of the
geisha community which she wrote
about in her Ph.D. dissertation. Since that
time, she has written five books. Her first
book, Geisha, was based on her early
research. The next book, Kimono is about
traditional Japanese clothing and the
history of the kimono. She followed that
with a fictional account of the Heian era
noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu, titled The
Tale of Murasaki. In 2007 she wrote a
memoir, East Wind Melts the Ice, which
was followed two years later by a second
work of fiction, Hidden Buddhas.
 Liza Crihfield Dalby
Born 1950 (age 67–68)

Nationality American

Other names Ichigiku

Citizenship United States

Education Doctor of Philosophy

Alma mater Stanford University

Occupation Anthropologist, geisha

Known for anthropologist and

novelist specializing in
Japanese culture

Website www.lizadalby.com
/LD/welcome.html

Dalby is considered an expert in the

study of the Japanese geisha community
and has acted as consultant to novelist
Arthur Golden and filmmaker Rob
Marshall for the novel Memoirs of a
Geisha and the film of the same name.

Background
As a high school student, Dalby visited
Japan in a student exchange program;
there she learned to play the shamisen.
In 1975, she returned to Japan for a year
to research the geisha community, as
part of her anthropology fieldwork.
Dalby's research, done as part of her
Ph.D studies at Stanford University, was
presented in her dissertation, and
became the basis for her first book,
Geisha, about the culture of the geisha
community. Her study, which included
interviews with more than 100 geisha,
was considered to be excellent and
received praise from scholars at the time
of publication, although some
retrospective scholarship is more
critical.[1] During her Ph.D studies about
the geisha community, conducted in
Pontochō, she was invited to join a house
in Kyoto where she was allowed to attend
banquets under the name Ichigiku—in
part because she was fluent in Japanese
and skilled with the shamisen. She
performed at ozashiki without charging
money, and, from the experience, formed
friendships and relationships with geisha
in the district.[2][3][4][5]

Works
Geisha

Her first non-fiction book, Geisha (filmed

as American Geisha), is based on her
experiences with the geisha community
in Kyoto's Pontochō district.[3][6] Because
of her expertise in the subject, Arthur
Golden asked for her to act as a
consultant when he wrote Memoirs of a
Geisha, and later Rob Marshall, director
of the 2005 film adaptation starring
Zhang Ziyi, consulted with her.[7][8] In the
book she writes about the life of geisha
and how the world is based on tightly knit
and hierarchical society of women. She
presents the history of the geisha
community and explores the context in
which geisha traditionally were in the
forefront of fashion, which for the
modern geisha is no longer true.[9]

Murasaki Shikibu depicted in formal Heian-era

twelve-layered kimono in this 17th-century illustration
by Tosa Mitsuoki
Kimono

Geisha was followed by a book about

kimono, called Kimono: Fashioning
Culture. In an interview with Salon.com,
she explains that in 11th-century
Japanese court literature, women
authors such as Murasaki Shikibu wrote
lengthy descriptions of kimono in their
work. Dalby believes, that from an
anthropological point of view, the dress
of the period must be taken seriously and
she strives to understand the symbolism
represented in the layering of clothing,
often described in texts such as
Murasaki's The Tale of Genji.[3] In the
book Dalby presents essays about the
social symbolism of the kimono, going
back to the 12th century when an
Empress had to choose a multi-layered
kimono based on mood, season, and
social event, without making a mistake in
color or style, moving all to the present
with an essay about modern Japanese
women who wear kimono.[10]

The Tale of Murasaki

Heian era court life depicted in a 19th-century ukiyo-e

illustration of The Tale of Genji by Hiroshige
Dalby's The Tale of Murasaki, a fictional
biography of Murasaki Shikibu, an 11th-
century court poet, whose work The Tale
of Genji is considered a classic, was
published in 2000. Dalby says that she
decided to write a fictional account of
Murasaki's life because she "couldn't
contribute anything scholarly".[3]
Fascinated by the 11th-century Heian
period court culture, she wove much of it
into the book: writing about the clothing
the women wore; the love affairs they
had; the manner in which poetry was
frequently exchanged; and that women
lived in seclusion, behind screens, with
their faces often unseen by lovers. Dalby
explains that the geisha society did not
develop until at least 500 years later, and
that a court lady-in-waiting such as
Murasaki would not have had the
temperament to be a geisha because
Murasaki was reserved, whereas geisha
are expected to be outgoing.[3]

East Wind Melts the Ice

She then wrote a memoir, East Wind

Melts the Ice: A Memoir through the
Seasons, published in 2007. In the book,
she follows the a system of time derived
in ancient China in which a year is
divided into 72 five-day periods. She
claims the concept has affected her
sense of time. The memoir consists of
72 vignettes, with lower case titles, such
as "chrysanthemums are tinged yellow".
According to The New York Times Book
Review, Dalby sees herself as eccentric,
reflected in her writing, where she
presents unusual yet interesting material.
In the book, she weaves together
experiences from Japan, China and
northern California, and "presents a
wealth of information".[6] Dalby received
praise from Booklist for the manner in
which she uses stream-of-consciousness
to create a work in which the eastern
concept of time is contrasted with the
western; her ability to see with an
anthropologist's eye and yet to bring an
imaginative and creative view to this
work; and in particular to bring together
the various places she has lived, from
Kyoto, where she was the first western
woman to become a geisha in the 1970s,
to northern California where she currently
lives.[11]

Hidden Buddhas

Dalby's second novel, Hidden Buddhas: A

Novel of Karma and Chaos, was published
in 2009, in which she returns to writing
fiction. In this book, set in modern-day
Japan, Paris, and California, she writes a
story set against the backdrop of the
concept of hibutsu (secret Buddha
statues) in Japanese Buddhist
temples.[12]

Bibliography
Geisha, University of California Press,
1983 ISBN 0-520-04742-7
Kimono: Fashioning Culture, Yale
University Press, 1993 ISBN 0-300-
05639-7
The Tale of Murasaki, First Anchor
Books, 2000 ISBN 0-385-49795-4
East Wind Melts the Ice, University of
California Press, 2007 ISBN 0-520-
25053-2
Hidden Buddhas, Stone Bridge Press,
2009
References
1. Bardsley, 314, 318
2. Nimura, Janice. "Lady-in-Waiting" .
January 7, 2001. The New York Times.
Retrieved July 13, 2011.
3. Miller, Laura. "Lady of the Shining
Prince". (July 12, 2000). Salon.com.
Retrieved August 31, 2011
4. Bardsley, 314–315
5. Liza, Dalby (1983). Geisha. London:
Vintage U.K. pp. 106–109. ISBN 978-0-09-
928638-7.
6. Goodyear, Dana."Brief Histories of
Time" . Sunday Book Review. (May 13,
2007). The New York Times. Retrieved
July 13, 2011.
7. Bardsley, 314
8. "Ken Watanabe to Star in Memoirs of A
Geisha" Archived 2012-10-14 at the
Wayback Machine.. Monsters and
critics.com. August 20, 2004. Retrieved
July 13, 2011.
9. Bardsley, 315
10. Becker, Alida. "Layers of Meaning".
New York Times Book Review. (March
1994).
11. Haggas, Carol. "East Wind Melts the
Ice: A Memoir through the Seasons".
(February 1, 2007). Booklist. Volume 103.
12. "Hidden Buddhas" Archived 2011-09-
27 at the Wayback Machine. Stonebridge
Press. Retrieved August 31, 2011.
Sources
Bardsley, Jan."Liza Dalby's Geisha: The
View Twenty-Five Later" . (2009)
Southeast Review of Asian Studies.
Volume 31.

External links
Official website
Works by or about Liza Dalby in
libraries (WorldCat catalog)

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Last edited 23 days ago by Ser Am…

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