Lesley Downer

Sachi finds her life changed forever when she becomes the Shogun princes favourite concubine. Epic history and romance combine in a sweeping novel featuring the beautiful mistress of the last Shogun EmperorSachi ve como su vida cambia para siempre cuando se convierte en la concubina favorita del principe del Shogunado. La historia epica y el romance se combinan en una trepidante novela protagonizada por la hermosa compañera del ultimo emperador Shogun.

The year is 1853, and a young Japanese girl's world is about to be turned upside down. When black ships carrying barbarians arrive on the shores of Japan, the Satsuma clan's way of life is threatened. But it's not just the samurai who must come together to fight: the beautiful, headstrong Okatsu is also given a new destiny by her feudal lord - to save the realm. Armed only with a new name, Princess Atsu, as she is now known, journeys to the women's palace of Edo Castle, a place so secret it cannot be marked on any map. Behind the palace's immaculate facade, amid rumours of murder and whispers of ghosts, Atsu must uncover the secret of the man whose fate, it seems, is irrevocably linked to hers - the shogun himself - if she is to rescue her people...

Only one woman can save her world from barbarian invasion but to do so will mean sacrificing everything she holds dear - love, loyalty and maybe life itself ...Japan, and the year is 1853. Growing up among the samurai of the Satsuma Clan, in Japan's deep south, the fiery, beautiful and headstrong Okatsu has - like all the clan's women - been encouraged to be bold, taught to wield the halberd, and to ride a horse. But when she is just seventeen, four black ships appear. Bristling with cannon and manned by strangers who to the Japanese eyes are barbarians, their appearance threatens Japan's very existence. And turns Okatsu's world upside down. Chosen by her feudal lord, she has been given a very special role to play. Given a new name - Princess Atsu - and a new destiny, she is the only one who can save the realm. Her journey takes her to Edo Castle, a place so secret that it cannot be marked on any map. There, sequestered in the Women's Palace - home to three thousand women, and where only one man may enter: the shogun - she seems doomed to live out her days. But beneath the palace's immaculate facade, there are whispers of murders and ghosts. It is here that Atsu must complete her mission and discover one last secret - the secret of the man whose fate is irrevocably linked to hers: the shogun himself...

1868. In Japan's exotic pleasure quarters, sex is for sale and the only forbidden fruit is love ...Hana is just seventeen when her husband goes to war, leaving her alone and vulnerable. When enemy soldiers attack her house she flees across the shattered city of Tokyo and takes refuge in the Yoshiwara, its famous pleasure-quarters. There she is forced to become a courtesan. Yozo, brave, loyal and a brilliant swordsman, is pledged to the embattled shogun. He sails to the frozen north to join his rebel comrades for a desperate last stand. Defeated, 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 their very lives...

A critically acclaimed author tells the enthralling true story of the real Madame Butterfly, a woman who became the most celebrated geisha in Japan and the first to tour the West. At twenty-nine, she captivated the worlds stage. From San Francisco to New York, Paris, and Berlin, audiences thrilled to her mesmeric acting and exquisite dancing. She performed for the American President and for the Prince of Wales in London. Picasso painted her. Gide, Debussy, Degas, and Rodin were among her devoted fans. She was Sadayakko, Japans most notorious geishaand its first international superstar. In Italy, Puccini was working on Madame Butterfly. He had the plot for his opera, but he had yet to see a real live flesh-and-blood Japanese womanuntil Sadayakko arrived with her troupe of traveling actors. Madame Sadayakko is the true story of this extraordinary womanmuse to writers, artists, and fashion designers. Her adventures lift the veil on the secretive world of the geisha and reveal a missing piece of history from the turn of the last century, when Japanese women wore bustles and learned the waltz and women in the West wore Sadayakko kimonos.

Esta es la historia de una japonesa que encarnó en Occidente el espíritu de su tiempo. En su adolescencia fue la amante del primer ministro Ito, quien pagó una fortuna por desvirgarla, aunque ella estaba enamorada de un joven. A finales del siglo XIX, Madame Sadayako se caso con un actor, introductor en Japon del teatro occidental. Se dieron cuenta de que en su pais no tenian futuro y probaron suerte en el extranjero. Sadayako se convirito asi en el simbolo de la fascinacion de Occidente por la cultura nipona. Al regresar al Japon, se encontraron marginados socialmente. Su marido fallecio y ella volvio con su primer amor, aquel joven que la habia abandonado por una vida burguesa. Madame Sadayako viviria para ser testigo de los acontecimientos que transformarian al Imperio del Sol Naciente.

A terrific overview of Japans long and rich history... covers an astonishing amount of ground PETER FRANKOPANJapan is a country of islands, strung like a necklace around the Asian mainland...Ever since US Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to open its borders in 1853, the culture of this remarkable and distant archipelago has enriched western life. At the same time the country has embraced foreign institutions from baseball to barber shops. Yet for centuries under the rule of the shoguns, the islands were largely sealed off from the outside world. In charting a course between openness and insularity, Japan has found a way to become ultra-modern while breathing new life into its own unique traditions.In The Shortest History of Japan, Lesley Downer brings an expert storytellers eye to the sweep of Japanese history. Here are the emperors and warlords, the samurai and women warriors, the merchants and geisha who shaped this extraordinary modern society. From the hunter-gatherers who fashioned the worlds first pots to the novel-writing ladies of the eleventh-century Heian court, from the devastation of Hiroshima to todays economic and cultural powerhouse, this is an indispensable, riveting history of the land of the rising sun.

Nueva novela de la autora de La última concubina. Un relato épico de amor en tiempos de guerra. En 1868, en los barrios del placer exótico del Japón, donde el sexo está en venta y el único fruto proh

En las montañas del Japón rural de 1861, la piel pálida y las delicadas facciones de Sachi hacen que se sienta diferente. Y lo es. Cuando cumple once años, una princesa imperial se la lleva al palacio de las mujeres del castillo de Edo. Alli, en un ambiente de intrigas y rivalidades, conviven tres mil mujeres y el joven shogun, gobernador de Japon. Sachi sera la elegida para convertirse en su concubina. Sus privilegios, sin embargo, pronto son solo un recuerdo, ya que al estallar la guerra civil la joven debe huir para salvar su vida. En un Japon en pleno cambio,en el que no hay lugar para la pasion y ni siquiera existe la palabra amor, Sachi se enamora de un joven guerrero. Pero antes de que pueda imaginar un futuro con el, debe resolver el misterio que subyace en sus origenes y que amenaza con destruirla.La ultima concubina es una intensa mezcla de aventura y romance, el relato de la lucha de unamujer memorable para encontrar su destino.Basada en hechos historicos y ambientada en una de las eras mas turbulentas en la historia de Japon, esta es una novela magica y llena de fuerza, que nos abre las puertas a un mundo exotico y desconocido.

Romance y aventura se combinan en una apasionante novela protagonizada por la concubina de el último shogunEn las montañas del Japón rural, Sachi siempre se ha sentido diferente. Su pálida piel y delicadas facciones la separan de su familia y amigos. Cuando cumple once años, una princesa imperial pasa por el pueblo y se la lleva al palacio de la gran ciudad de Edo. En medio de intrigas y rivalidades eroticas, Sachi sera elegida como concubina del joven shogun entre tres mil mujeres.

En la línia de "Memòries d'una geisha" i "La Ciutat Prohibida"1861, Japó: la Sachi, una nena tímida i reservada de pell blanca i ulls verds, viu en un poblet de l'interior de les muntanyes amb la sev