Lady Murasaki Shikibu, born in the year 978, was a member of the famed Fujiwara clan—one of the most influential families of the Heian period. Her literary ability quickly won her a place in the entourage of the Empress Akiko, whose court valued the rare woman who was a master of writing. After the death of her husband, Murasaki Shikibu immersed herself in Buddhism, and the religion's influences permeate her writing.
Michael Emmerich is Associate Professor of Japanese literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World Literature, the editor of Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers and New Penguin Parallel Texts: Short Stories in Japanese, and the translation of numerous works of premodern, modern and contemporary Japanese Literature. In 2010, he was awarded the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature for his translation of Kawakami Hiromi's novel Manazuru.