Shikibu Murasaki

Baroness Murasaki was a Japanese writer and court figure. She wrote the celebrated romantic novel Genji-monogatari (The Tale of Genji, completed a.d. 1003), one of the first great Japanese works of fiction, and considered to be one of the world's earliest novels. Genji traces the lives of the fictional Prince Genji, his wives and their children, and subtly delineates a complex society.