num_pages: 360
description: In the eleventh century Murasaki Shikibu, a lady in the Heian court of Japan, wrote the world's first novel. But The Tale of Genji is no mere artifact. It is, rather, a lively and astonishingly nuanced portrait of a refined society where every dalliance is an act of political consequence, a play of characters whose inner lives are as rich and changeable as those imagined by Proust. Chief of these is "the shining Genji," the son of the emperor and a man whose passionate impulses create great turmoil in his world and very nearly destroy him. This edition, recognized as the finest version in English, contains a dozen chapters from early in the book, carefully chosen by the translator, Edward G. Seidensticker, with an introduction explaining the selection. It is illustrated throughout with woodcuts from a seventeenth-century edition.
language: English
title: The Tale of Genji
titlecomplete: The Tale of Genji
characters: Murasaki, Genji, To no Chujo, Yugiri, Fujitsubo
genres: Asia, Historical Fiction, Historical, Japanese Literature, Novels, Literature, Japan, Classics, Romance, Fiction
ratings_count: 12928
places: Japan
series: 源氏物語  , The Tale of Genji, El Relato de Genji (Traducción APJ)
publisher: Vintage