Even before Japan opened to the west in 1853, westerners were beginning to discover Japan’s extraordinary culture. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth Japonisme was hugely in vogue. Across Europe and the United States, people filled their houses with fans, screens, blue and white porcelain, netsuke and samurai swords like the one that inspired WS Gilbert to write the Mikado. Fashionable women wore kimonos and were painted in them. As well as poets and artists, musicians too were inspired by Japanese culture.

Right at the height of the vogue for all things Japanese, an exquisitely beautiful ex-geisha named Sadayakko arrived in the US. She toured from the west coast to the east, then crossed the Atlantic and performed in England. At the Paris Expo of 1901, she was acclaimed as the star of the entire show. Debussy went to see her perform and shortly afterwards composed La Mer. She went onto be the inspiration for Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, along the way being painted by Picasso, admired by Isadora Duncan and dining with Tsar Nikolai II.

This July the Proms featured a programme of Japanese and Japanese-inspired music and asked me to talk about Sadayakko, the embodiment of Japonisme. Here is what I said.

Japan, 1868: the last shogun has been defeated, the age of the emperors is about to begin – and in Japan’s frozen north a diehard band of loyalists plans a desperate last stand.

Hana is just seventeen when her husband goes to war, leaving her alone and very vulnerable. When enemy soldiers attack her house she flees for her life across the shattered city of Tokyo and takes refuge in the Yoshiwara, its famous pleasure quarter. There she is sold into a brothel and forced to train as a courtesan.

Yozo, a traveller, adventurer and brilliant swordsman, returns to Japan after six years in the Victorian West to discover that the world he left behind him has been destroyed. Travelling north to join his rebel comrades, he is captured during their final battle. Escaping, he makes his way south to the only place where a man is beyond the reach of the law – the Yoshiwara. There in the Nightless City where three thousand courtesans mingle with geishas and jesters, the battered fugitive meets the beautiful courtesan. But each has a secret so terrible that once revealed it will threaten not only their union – but their very lives…

Pre-order ‘The Courtesan and the Samurai’ on Amazon.co.uk

Wednesday, April 15th -  BERLIN
18.00
Illustrated lecture: The Last Concubine:  Secrets of the Women’s Palace
At the centre of the German-Japanese Society of Berlin,
Deutsch-Japanisches Zentrum Berlin,
Saargemünder Str. 2

Thursday, April 16th - HAMBURG
19.00
Reading: The Last Concubine
Shiawase Japanisches Restaurant
Jungfernstieg 7
Hamburg

Friday, April 17th BIELEFELD
19.00
Illustrated lecture: The Last Concubine:  Secrets of the Women’s Palace
At the museum of Huelsmann, Remise
Ravensberger Park 3
33607 Bielefeld
Tel. 0521-513767 – Fax: 0521-513768

Watch this space!

Japan Through Writers’ Eyes

Asia House Presents
Japan Through Writers’ Eyes
Thursday 19 March 6.45pm

How does one begin to understand the enigma that is Japan?

Four Japan specialists will celebrate Eland’s new book, Japan Through Writers’ Eyes, edited by journalist and former Tokyo resident Elizabeth Ingrams. She will be joined by three travel specialists: Lesley Downer, author of a novel, The Last Concubine, and several non-fiction works on Japan, Timon Screech, Professor of History of Art at SOAS, specialist in early modern Japan and Joanna Hunter, contemporary travel writer and former Asahi Shimbun newspaper journalist.

Followed by reception sponsored by Sasakawa Foundation
Tel: 020 7307 5454 www.asiahouse.org
Mail to: enquiries@asiahouse.co.uk
Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 7LP

Download Japan Through Writers’ Eyes Flyer in PDF format

Many congratulations to Julia Gregson who won the romantic novel of the year award 2009 for her wonderful novel East of the Sun. I was honoured to be nominated for the shortlist and much enjoyed meeting my fellow shortlisters Cecelia Ahern, Linda Gillard, Susanna Kearsley and Judith Lennox. The competition, the award and the very enjoyable party in Kensington yesterday, February 10th, were organised by the Romantic Novelists Association. Thanks to everyone there for a splendid occasion.

Please click on thumbnails below to scroll through the gallery:

The Last Concubine comes out in paperback on February 12th 2009.

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

The Last Concubine by Lesley Downer shortlisted for Romantic Novel of the Year

Romantic Novel of the Year

Bestselling author Cecelia Ahern is one of the six authors shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year 2009, which is organised by the Romantic Novelists’ Association. The final six novels are currently being read by a panel of three judges, who will select the winner in time for the presentation at the Awards Lunch to be held on 10th February 2009 at the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington.

Shortlisted Authors - Romantic Novel of the Year Award

This year’s award has a truly international flavour, with authors living far afield and books set in Japan, Canada, India, Dublin and Skye. Cecelia Ahern, whose hero is American, comes from Ireland. She is joined by Susanna Kearsley, who hails from Canada , and Linda Gillard, who lives in Glasgow. England is well represented by Lesley Downer, based in London, Judith Lennox from Cambridgeshire and Julia Gregson, whose shortlisted novel was one of Richard and Judy’s summer reads, from Monmouthshire.

The shortlisted novels are:

Thanks for the Memories – Cecelia Ahern (Harper Collins)

The Last Concubine – Lesley Downer (Transworld/Bantam)

Star Gazing – Linda Gillard (Little, Brown/Piatkus)

East of the Sun – Julia Gregson (Orion)

Sophia’s Secret – Susanna Kearsley (Allison & Busby)

Before the Storm – Judith Lennox (Headline Review)

Lesley Downer says: “I’m thrilled and flattered to have been shortlisted. I grew up with Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice and hugely enjoyed creating a romantic world of my own. I found it utterly gripping to write about a society which has no concept of romantic love. It made it all the clearer what a powerful and primeval force love is.” Readers agreed, saying, “a real magic carpet of a book… truly moving… a hero to die for…couldn’t put it down.”

The panel with the difficult task of picking a winner from this page-turning collection of romantic novels comprises Alice O’Keeffe, Books Editor at the Bookseller, Fanny Blake, Books Editor of Woman & Home, and Peter Crawshaw, who runs Lovereading.co.uk.

A reviewer of The Last Concubine in the highly respected Literary Review wrote: ‘The author, who lived in Japan for many years, has published non-fiction accounts of the lives of the geishas, and capitalises on recent Western interest in their esoteric, vanished world with her detailed depiction of Sachi’s life in the rarefied harem.’ I’m very grateful for the review – but I have to point out that my book has nothing to do with geishas. A Spanish journalist also wrote to me: ‘Your book “Madame Sadayakko” was a success. Now you return to the topic of the geishas. Why are you so fascinated about this world?’ and ‘How was the life of a geisha in the Palace of the Women?’

Geishas and concubines have absolutely nothing in common other than being Japanese women.

The Last Concubine is about the concubines of the shogun, who were usually aristocratic ladies chosen to be the shogun’s ‘second wife’ or ‘third wife’ and hopefully to bear a son for him to be the future shogun. To be a concubine was a highly coveted honour and concubines were formally recognised in a ceremony much like a marriage.

Geisha and courtesans on the other hand were (and are) part of the demi monde. Geisha are entertainers – the word means artistes – who performed dances and songs to private gatherings usually of men. In old Japan they were at the very bottom of the social system (like actresses in the Victorian west – think ‘Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington.’) Traditionally they were not supposed to sell sex. That was the courtesans’ job and they were prohibited from stealing the courtesans’ clients. If they married they had to stop being geishas – geishas and wives were like opposite sides of the coin.

In other words, geishas, concubines and courtesans were entirely different, not just a catch all term for Japanese women, and not to be confused.

Tuesday November 18th
7 pm
Oxford University Japan Society
Oriel College, Oxford
Illustrated lecture on The Last Concubine: Secrets of the Women’s Palace

Free for members, £1.50 for non-members

Lesley Downer is featured author on the Canadian Penguin Book Club website.

Canadian paperback of The Last Concubine

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