Murasaki Shikibu

Murasaki was born around 973 into a minor branch of the powerful Fujiwara family. Her father was a scholar. As a child, she listened while her brother studied the Chinese classics, and she learned faster than he did. Her father is said to have sighed that it was a pity she was not a boy. In her time, Chinese was the language of men and of government. Women usually wrote in kana, the Japanese phonetic script. Murasaki married, lost her husband after only a few years and began to write. Around 1006 she went to serve Empress Shōshi in Kyoto. "Murasaki" is probably a nickname taken from a heroine of her book. "Shikibu" points to her father's post at the Ministry of Ceremonial.

The Tale of Genji has 54 chapters. It follows the loves and losses of Hikaru Genji, the "Shining Prince," and later of his descendants. There are no battles in it. Instead, it tells of poems sent at dawn, of glances through screens and of the sadness of time passing. Centuries later, the scholar Motoori Norinaga saw in it the purest expression of mono no aware. Murasaki also kept a diary of court life. In it she sharply criticised another famous writer, Sei Shōnagon. A scene from Genji and a portrait of Murasaki appear on Japan's 2,000-yen note.