Sei Shōnagon
In the court manners of the time (the Heian Period), it was considered unacceptably familiar and vulgar to freely address people by either their personal or family names. As a result, the real name of the author is lost, and she was called "Murasaki Shikibu", as an alias: Murasaki after the heroine she invented; Shikibu after her father's official rank. The author Murasaki was an aristocrat, the daughter of a provincial governor who probably belonged to a minor branch of the Fujiwara clan. She served as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shoshi, a daughter of Fujiwara Michinaga, and was a literary contemporary and rival of Sei Shōnagon.