A Woman of Pleasure

From Akutagawa Prize-winning author Kiyoko Murata comes a dazzling historical novel about the courtesans whose strike brought down a red-light district'Only Kiyoko Murata can convey this world' YOKO OGAWA, author of The Memory Police, Yomiuri ShibunThe year is 1903, and tenacious and spirited Aoi Ichi is sold to the most exclusive brothel in Kumamoto, Japan, becoming the protegee of Shinonome, the oiran, or the highest-ranking courtesan.Through Shinonome's teachings, fifteen-year-old Ichi begins to understand the intertwined power of sex and money. Education for a courtesan extends beyond the art of seduction, and as Ichi is taught to read and write she develops a voice that refuses to be dampened by the brothel's rigid hierarchy.