Liza Dalby is an anthropologist and writer specializing in Japan. She lives in Berkeley, California. Anthropologist (PhD Stanford) and writer (Geisha, Tales of Murasaki) best known for having become the the only westerner ever to become a geisha. Her story was dramatized on US network TV. In 2004 served as geisha consultant to film of Arthur Golden's novel, Memoirs of a Geisha.