Murasaki Shikibu

The Tale of Genji, often called one of the world's first novels, was written around the year 1000 by a woman whose real name has not survived. Known to history as Murasaki Shikibu, she was a minor noblewoman of the Fujiwara clan who served as a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court in Heian-kyō, modern Kyoto, at the height of the Heian period. Her tale of the "shining prince" Genji, her diary and her poems give an unrivalled picture of court life in early Japan.

She was born around 973, though estimates range from 970 to 978, into a branch of the northern Fujiwara that had once been near the top of the aristocracy but had sunk to the rank of provincial governors. The family was known for its poets. Her father, Fujiwara no Tametoki, was a respected scholar of Chinese. Her mother died when she was young, and unusually she grew up in her father's house. Chinese was then the written language of government, and girls were not normally taught it, but she picked it up by listening to her brother's lessons, mastering passages he found too difficult. Her name is a later description: Shikibu refers to the ministry where her father served, and Murasaki, "purple", probably comes from the heroine of her own novel. She may have been the Fujiwara no Kaoruko named in a court record of 1007.

In 996 she went with her father to his governorship in Echizen province. She returned to the capital, probably in 998, to marry Fujiwara no Nobutaka, a much older relative with several other households. Their daughter was born in 999, and in 1001 Nobutaka died during an epidemic. It is not known exactly when she began The Tale of Genji, but she was certainly writing it as a widow, and chapters passed from hand to hand among readers, building her reputation. The story that she was inspired while gazing at the moon at Ishiyama temple is a legend.

In 1005 or 1006 she joined the household of the empress Shōshi, daughter of Fujiwara no Michinaga, the most powerful man at court, who had married four daughters to emperors. Michinaga probably wanted talented women around Shōshi to rival the brilliant circle of the earlier empress Teishi, whose lady-in-waiting Sei Shōnagon had written The Pillow Book. Murasaki secretly taught Shōshi Chinese poetry, while hiding her own learning from a court that thought it unladylike. Her diary, covering about 1008 to 1010, records court ceremonies and the birth of Shōshi's sons, sharp judgements of other women writers, including Sei Shōnagon, and her discomfort with court life and with Michinaga's attentions. Michinaga supplied the paper, ink and copyists that a work of Genji's length required.

The finished tale runs to 54 chapters and follows the gifted and handsome prince Genji through his loves and losses, against the background of an imperial court set about a century before her own time. Written in kana, the Japanese syllabic script used by women of the court, it left behind the fairy-tale elements of earlier tales and dwelt on emotion and character and on the passing of all things. It was read to the emperor Ichijō, and by 1021 the whole work was known to be complete. Three works are attributed to her: the tale, the diary and a collection of 128 poems.

After Ichijō died in 1011, Murasaki probably followed Shōshi into retirement, and she is recorded with her in 1013. Most scholars date her death to 1014, but some think she lived until about 1025. Within a century Genji was regarded as a classic. An illustrated scroll of it was painted between about 1110 and 1120, and later artists, from court painters to ukiyo-e printmakers, depicted her and her characters. Arthur Waley's English translation was completed in 1933, and she appears on the 2000-yen note.

Our 1000 map shows Japan under the Fujiwara regents during her lifetime, when ties with China had loosened and a distinctly Japanese court culture was emerging.