Murasaki Shikibu, an aristocratic Japanese woman was born in Kyoto, Japan, around AD 973. Like most ladies of that period who served in the court of the empress, Lady Murasaki was likely accomplished in both music and writing. However, her writing was not limited to the traditional poetry was expected of cultured women of that time. She wrote a long work of fiction, The Tale of Genji, which not only is still read today and has been called the world's first great novel.
Although little is known of the events of her life, but scholars speculate that Lady Murasaki began writing her fiction before she came into the service of the Empress Akiko. Since the "grand ladies" of the court thought literature important, perhaps Murasaki's writing was the reason she was summoned to court. Instead, she completed most of the stories of the life of Genji while both serving the empress and observed the activities and attitudes of court society.
The fifty-four-chapter book, which takes place over almost three-quarters of a century, describes the life and loves of a Prince Genji and the lives of there children and grandchildren. Although other fiction was written during this period, Murasaki's work went beyond the usual style. Instead of using the flat characterizations and fairy-tale predicaments of the typical romance, Murasaki portrayed believable people in daily situations. Recent critics have been astonished at the modern character of the tale.
In the more than one thousand years sinceThe Tale of Genji was written, it has been translated into over thirty languages and has appeared in a varicty of formats. In the twelfth century, the tale was illustrated with picture scrolls; in the seventeenth century, books of wood-block prints based on the tale was produced. (13)Today, Lady Murasaki's eleventh-century tale can even be read online at a Web site provided by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.(14)