Included in this fabulous novel are excerpts from Murasaki’s thousand-year-old diary, including practically all the waka from Murasaki’s poem collection – both in Japanese and with the English translation. Every paragraph conveys such vivid imagery, it’s almost as though you’re watching the tale unfold rather than reading it. The Tale of Murasaki is a fictional biography of eleventh century Japanese writer Murasaki Shikibu, author of the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji, and member of the Heian court at Miyako (present-day Kyoto). Whether writing about mystical rice fields in the rainy mountains or the politics and intrigue of the royal court, Dalby breathes astonishing life into ancient Japan. The Tale of Murasaki is the story of an enchanting time and an exotic place. In The Tale of Murasaki, Liza Dalby has created a breathtaking fictionalized narrative of the life of this timeless poet–a lonely girl who becomes such a compelling storyteller that she is invited to regale the empress with her tales. In the eleventh century, Murasaki Shikibu wrote the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji, the most popular work in the history of Japanese literature. The Tale of Murasaki is an elegant and brilliantly authentic historical novel by the author of Geisha and the only Westerner ever to have become a geisha. Reviewer: Gwendoline SK Terry (6 December 2019)

The tale of murasaki by liza dalby