The novel Memoirs of a Geisha is a fictional story written in the eyes of a Nitta Sayuri. She is a retired geisha who was once one of the most famous geisha in all of Gion. She has relocated her life to New York and opened her own small tea house to entertain Japanese men doing business in the United States.
Nitta Sayuri is being interviewed by Professor Haarhuis (a professor at NYU) at the Waldorf Towers where she lives and the novel starts when she starts her interview.