And then I became aware of all the magnificent silk wrapped around my body, and had the feeling I might drown in beauty. At that moment, beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy.

He currently lives in Brookline Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University and received a degree in art history specializing in Japanese art. The lawsuit was settled out of court in February 2003.

Arthur Golden (born December 6 1956) is an American writer. He is the author of the bestselling novel Memoirs of a Geisha (1997).