Murasaki Shikibu

Murasaki Shikibu was probably born between 970 and 978 in Heian-kyō, present-day Kyoto. 'Murasaki Shikibu' is a nickname: Shikibu refers to the Ministry of Rites, where her father worked, and Murasaki possibly to a character in her novel. Her personal name, like that of most women of the time, has not survived.

Her father Fujiwara no Tametoki belonged to a less powerful branch of the Fujiwara clan and was a scholar and poet. Her mother probably died when she was young. In her diary Murasaki relates that she learned Chinese faster than her brother, whereupon her father is said to have regretted that she was not a boy.

Around 996 she accompanied her father to Echizen Province. After her return she married Fujiwara no Nobutaka, a much older official, around 998; they had a daughter, Kenshi, who later became a poet herself. Nobutaka died in 1001. Scholars believe that Murasaki began 'The Tale of Genji' in the years that followed.

Around 1005–1006 she entered the service of Empress Shōshi, daughter of Fujiwara no Michinaga, who dominated politics at court. Her diary covering 1008–1010 describes ceremonies, the birth of an imperial prince and sharp portraits of other ladies-in-waiting and writers, including Sei Shōnagon. She secretly taught the empress Chinese poetry.

'The Tale of Genji' has 54 chapters and follows the life and loves of Prince Hikaru Genji and, after his death, the next generation. It is written in Japanese, with many poems (waka), and stands out for its psychological depth and sense of impermanence. No manuscripts from her time survive; the oldest copies are centuries later.

The Heian period (794–1185) was a time of relative peace in which a small aristocracy lived in the capital around the emperor. Real power lay with the Fujiwara regents, who married their daughters to emperors. Rank, birth and etiquette governed life at court, and poetry was an important means of communication and courtship.

Men wrote official texts in Chinese, while the phonetic kana script was used for literature above all by women. As a result, a flourishing literature by women authors emerged around the year 1000, with diaries, tales and Sei Shōnagon's 'Pillow Book'. Buddhist ideas about impermanence coloured the worldview of these court circles.

Genji was read and copied at court during her lifetime. In the centuries that followed it became a fixed point of reference for poets; the 12th-century Genji scrolls are among the oldest surviving Japanese narrative paintings. The work influenced Noh theatre, painting and garden design, and later woodblock prints, film and manga.

Commentaries from later centuries made Genji a classic that was also used to understand court life and waka poetry. The scholar Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) saw in it the essence of 'mono no aware', the pathos of the transience of things. In the 20th century, translations such as Arthur Waley's (1925–1933) made the work known worldwide.

After about 1013 reliable reports of Murasaki cease. She may have died around 1014, but some scholars favour later dates, up to around 1025 or later. A grave traditionally attributed to her lies in northern Kyoto. Besides Genji, her diary and a collection of her poems survive.

Genji is often called 'the world's first novel'; literary historians treat that claim critically, since the answer depends on how a novel is defined and earlier long narratives exist. Its place in Japanese culture is undisputed: its millennium was celebrated in 2008, and a scene from Genji and her portrait appear on the 2,000-yen banknote.