Murasaki Shikibu

Murasaki Shikibu was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court during the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, widely considered to be the world’s first novel. Murasaki’s personal name is unknown, but she may have been Fujiwara no Takako.

About Murasaki Shikibu in brief

Murasaki Shikibu was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court during the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, widely considered to be the world’s first novel, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki’s personal name is unknown, but she may have been Fujiwara no Takako, who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady- in-wa waiting. She married in her mid-to late twenties and gave birth to a daughter before her husband died, two years after they were married. It is uncertain when she began to write The Tale. Genji was distributed throughout the provinces; within a century it was recognized as a classic of Japanese literature and had become a subject of scholarly criticism. A six-volume English translation was completed in 1933. Scholars differ on the year of her death; although most agree on 1014, others have suggested she was alive in 1031. She wrote The Diary of Lady Murasaki, a volume of poetry, and The Tale Of Genji. Her great-grandfather and grandfather both had been friendly with Ki no Tsurayuki, who became notable for popularizing verse written inJapanese. Muraki’s father was a functionary at the Ministry of Ceremonials where Murasaki was a violet wister, meaning the color associated with the color of violet. Her mother was descended from the same branch of northern Fujiwaras as her father.

The couple had three children, a son and two daughters, but they did not follow a modern pattern of names, insofar as they were not recorded, as they didn’t have a title of her own position or rank of a court lady, as well as being well known by being a well-known poet and novelist. She was married to a man who was a scholar of Chinese classics and poetry; his own verse was anthologized. Heian women were traditionally excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki showed a precocious aptitude for the Chinese classics. She continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work. After five or six years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Her work reflects Heian court society at its peak, and has been illustrated by Japanese artists and well- known ukiyo-e woodblock masters. She had fifty-six poems included in thirteen of the Twenty-one Imperial Anthologies, the Collections of Thirty-six Poets and the Yamato Monogatari. Her family had a reputation among the literati through her grandfather and grandfather, both of whom were well-respected poets. The family had been in the top tier of the aristocracy, but her branch of the family gradually lost power and by the time of Murasaki’s birth was at the middle to lower ranks of Heian aristocracy—the level of provincial governors.

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