Name: The Tale of Genji:
SKU: 1649870
Price: 39.15 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Murasaki Shikibu
ISBN: 9780142437148

Type

Physical Book

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Translated by

Royall Tyler

Publisher

Penguin

Year

2002

Language

English

Pages

1216

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

23.3x16x5.1 cm

Weight

1.59 kg.

ISBN

014243714X

ISBN13

9780142437148

Edition No.

Synopsis "The Tale of Genji: "

The world's first novel, in a translation that is "likely to be the definitive edition . . . for many years to come" (The Wall Street Journal) The inspiration behind The Metropolitan Museum of Art's The Tale of Genji A Japanese Classic Illuminated -- Now through June 16 at The Met Fifth Avenue A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of courtly life in medieval Japan is widely celebrated as the world's first novel. Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic. Royall Tyler's superior translation is detailed, poetic, and superbly true to the Japanese original while allowing the modern reader to appreciate it as a contemporary treasure. Supplemented with detailed notes, glossaries, character lists, and chronologies to help the reader navigate the multigenerational narrative, this comprehensive edition presents this ancient tale in the grand style that it deserves.

Murasaki Shikibu

(Author)

View Author's Page

Although her immense talent was recognized in her time, very little is known about the writer's life. She may have been born in 975, she may have died in 1014. Not even her real name is known. It is known that she was the daughter of a scholar, though a poet without talent, passionate about literature, who taught his daughter the Chinese language and its classics, but also passed on to her the love for the literature of her ancestors.

They say her father regretted that such a smart girl had not been born a boy to continue the literary prestige of the family. However, he took his young daughter with him on a long journey through the Empire. It is known that at the age of twenty-nine, Murasaki lived at the Court as a lady-in-waiting to the intelligent Empress Akiko. Between the year 1008 and the year 1010 she wrote her diary, perhaps simultaneously to the composition of The Tale of Genji.

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