Read this book on the recommendation of a friend and largely enjoyed it in terms of plot and reading experience, but I was so frustrated with so many aspects of it. Particularly the fact that Sayuri’s entire life’s aspiration was to be with a man she met as a CHILD when he was in his 40s, and that she pretty much never challenged any societal expectations put on her and was a perfect subservient woman most of her life. I kept waiting for the book to turn on its head and force Sayuri to gain an independent will to live but it never happened.
Anyway, now I’m on a kick for international woman-centred historical fiction, and I would love recommendations that are not written by a white man and don’t suck. Anyone have ideas?
Along similar lines I really liked A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Would love to be introduced to new cultures (as a Canadian who hasn’t had the funds to travel).
by IReadBooksSometimes
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This is a memoir, but it’s by the woman whose life story Arthur Golden bastardized for Memoirs of a Geisha: Geisha, A Life by Mineko Iwasaki. I think you’d find it a really interesting read after being frustrated with some of the choices Golden made. Iwasaki was frustrated enough to write her own memoir to set the record straight!
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan is technically alternate history rather than historical fiction. It’s set in 14th century China right before the founding of the Ming Dynasty.
The protagonist is… intense. If you are looking for a woman with a will to live, she’s certainly that.
The writing is brilliant, the story very dark, and the author is an Asian Australian nonbinary person.