The Tale of Genji

by Murasaki Shikibu · 1010

The shining prince Genji's loves and losses at the Heian court — often called the world's first novel.

Books that mention The Tale of Genji (6)

• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami: “The sort of vengeful spirits that populate The Tale of Genji may be something similar.”
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett: “The Makioka Sisters was her reward for having finished The Tale of Genji”
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: “her hair pulled back... like some nobleman in The Tale of Genji”
• The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist by Orhan Pamuk: “from Don Quixote or even The Tale of Genji, to Robinson Crusoe, Moby-Dick”
• Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson: “the Koran, Homer, Tolstoy, Sundiata, Balzac, The Tale of Genji – are read in translation”
• A Six-Foot Sickbed by Masaoka Shiki: “Scholars of Japanese literature and native learning have devoted themselves mainly to studying The Tale of Genji, The Pillow Book and the like, and, dismissing everything from the Tokugawa period on as vulgar, they ignore it, so they know nothing of three hundred years of recent literature. [auto-translated]”