Murasaki Shikibu writes The Tale of Genji

Murasaki Shikibu's real name is unknown; ‘Shikibu’ recalls her father's post in the Ministry of Ceremonial. Born in the 970s into a scholarly family of the northern Fujiwara, she learned Chinese by listening to her brother's lessons. Her husband, Fujiwara no Nobutaka, died in 1001, and she probably began the tale while married or soon after she was widowed. Around 1005 or 1006, already known as an author, she entered the service of Empress Shōshi, daughter of the all-powerful Fujiwara no Michinaga, who supplied her with costly paper, ink and calligraphers. Her diary, covering about 1008–1010, describes new chapters being handed to copyists. On 1 December 1008, at the banquet for the fiftieth day of the empress's son Prince Atsunari, the courtier Fujiwara no Kintō asked whether ‘young Murasaki’ was present — the earliest dated reference to the tale. Emperor Ichijō, hearing it read aloud, remarked that the author must have read the Chronicles of Japan, and a lady-in-waiting who disliked Murasaki turned this into the mocking nickname ‘Lady of the Chronicles’.

Genji is the son of an emperor by a low-ranking consort and is made a commoner with the surname Minamoto; his loves, his exile to Suma and his return to power fill the first part, his later years and death the second, and the last thirteen chapters, largely set at Uji, follow his supposed son Kaoru and his grandson Niou. Some four hundred characters, almost none of them named directly, age consistently across three generations. The tale is written mostly in hiragana, the script of women's writing, and contains 795 waka through which much of the story is told. It was complete in its present form by about 1021, when the author of the Sarashina Diary rejoiced at obtaining all fifty-odd chapters; whether Murasaki wrote all of them, especially the later ones, is still debated.

The original manuscript is lost, and more than 300 later copies survive; in the 13th century Fujiwara no Teika and Minamoto no Chikayuki prepared the two main recensions. Within a century the Genji was a classic studied by scholars, and its famous illustrated handscrolls date from the 12th century. Akiko Yosano translated it into modern Japanese, and Arthur Waley's English version (1925–1933) was followed by complete translations by Edward Seidensticker, Royall Tyler and Dennis Washburn.