The Tale of Genji, Japanese Genji monogatari, masterpiece of Japanese literature by Murasaki Shikibu. Written at the start of the 11th century, it is generally considered the world’s first novel.

Genji monogatari: Miotsukushi, centre detail of left screen of a pair of sixfold screens by Sōtatsu, colour on gold-leafed paper; in the Seikado Bunko Art Museum, Tokyo. The Seikado Bunko Art Museum, Tokyo

Britannica Quiz Exploring Japan: Fact or Fiction? Japan consists of a single island.

Murasaki Shikibu composed The Tale of Genji while a lady in attendance at the Japanese court, likely completing it about 1010. Because Chinese was the court’s scholarly language, works written in Japanese (the literary language used by women, often in personal accounts of life at court) were not taken very seriously; so too, prose was not considered the equal of poetry. The Tale of Genji, however, differed in being informed by a comprehensive knowledge of Chinese and Japanese poetry and in being a graceful work of imaginative fiction. It incorporates some 800 waka, courtly poems purported to be the writing of the main character, and its supple narrative sustains the story through 54 chapters of one character and his legacy.

Murasaki Shikibu Murasaki Shikibu. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (The Joan Elizabeth Tanney Bequest; M.2006.136.313), www.lacma.org

At its most basic, The Tale of Genji is an absorbing introduction to the culture of the aristocracy in early Heian Japan—its forms of entertainment, its manner of dress, its daily life, and its moral code. The era is exquisitely re-created through the story of Genji, the handsome, sensitive, gifted courtier, an excellent lover and a worthy friend. Most of the story concerns the loves of Genji, and each of the women in his life is vividly delineated. The work shows supreme sensitivity to human emotions and the beauties of nature, but as it proceeds its darkening tone reflects the Buddhist conviction of this world’s transience.

The Tale of Genji Scroll painting depicting a funeral ceremony in a scene from The Tale of Genji. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1912, (12.134.11), www. metmuseum.org

Arthur Waley was the first to translate The Tale of Genji into English (6 vol., 1925–33). Waley’s translation is beautiful and inspiring but also very free. Edward Seidensticker’s translation (1976) is true to the original in both content and tone, but its notes and reader aids are sparse, in contrast to the translation published by Royall Tyler in 2001.