清少納言
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.