Murasaki Shikibu
Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji, generally regarded as the world's first novel and the supreme work of Japanese literature. Born around 973 into a minor branch of the powerful Fujiwara clan, her actual name is unknown; Shikibu refers to her father's post in the Bureau of Ceremonial, and Murasaki is the name of a character in her book. Her father was a provincial governor and a scholar of Chinese, and she learned the language by listening to her brother's lessons — he was slower than she was, and her father is recorded regretting that she had not been born a boy. Chinese was the language of men and of government; women were expected to write in Japanese kana. She married a much older kinsman around 998, had a daughter, and was widowed within a few years. Some time after 1005 she entered the service of Empress Shōshi at the Heian court, probably because her writing had already attracted attention. The Tale of Genji runs to fifty-four chapters and some 400 characters, following the life and loves of an emperor's son excluded from the succession, and continuing for two generations after his death. Its achievement is interior: it tracks how its characters feel and how feeling changes with age, and it is pervaded by mono no aware, a sensitivity to the transience of things. It was written in instalments and circulated at court as she produced it. Her diary is caustic about her contemporaries, particularly Sei Shōnagon, whom she calls dreadfully conceited. It also records the tedium and surveillance of court service. She probably died around 1014.
- Lived: 973 CE – 1014 CE
- Nationality: Japanese
- Roles: writer
