Journalism
Lesley Downer writes regular book reviews for the New York Times Book Review and the occasional feature article for the Sunday Times Magazine. She was a regular contributor to the arts and leisure page of the Wall Street Journal and the Wall Street Journal Europe, covering arts, leisure and fashion (including London Fashion Week - a wonderful commission!), from 1991 to 2001. She has written for a range of newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Sunday Times, the Times, the Telegraph, the Observer, the Scotsman, Fortune Magazine, Prospect and also for Shukan Shincho and Newsweek Japan.
Some recent articles:
Discover Your Inner Geisha
Every woman has wondered what it must be like to be able to stop a man in his tracks with a single glance. Among the geisha the art of alluring men is not a matter of innate sexuality but a skill they learn. Geisha are not high class courtesans, despite what people think. They are far more mysterious than that. Officially they are entertainers. The word ‘gei-sha’ means ‘arts person’ or ‘artiste’ and their arts include singing, dancing and witty conversation. But their real work of art is themselves.
Secrets of the Shogun’s Harem
November 1861. Sunlight glitters on the lances and pikes of hundreds of attendants and guards as a procession winds slowly along a mountain road in central Japan. In all there are twenty thousand people - lords and ladies in palanquins, battalions of warriors on horseback and on foot, officials, ladies-in-waiting, maids and maids of maids. Then come shoe bearers, parasol bearers, bearers of imperial bathwater and the imperial bath, chefs, bearers of food and tea-making equipment, porters humping boxes and dragging huge wheeled trunks and grooms leading pack horses laden with luggage - so many that it takes four days for the whole multitude to pass through each village along the way.
