What Is the World’s Oldest Novel?

The Tale of Genji, written by a Japanese woman named Murasaki Shikibu around 1,000 years ago, is widely regarded as the world’s first novel.

Rather than focusing on mythic quests or moral allegories like earlier epics and religious texts, Genji delves into the interior lives of its fictional characters, who for the first time in history “jumped off the page.” It portrays the jealousy, longing, grief and complexities of personal relationships within a realistic social world by putting readers in the minds of its characters. This psychological realism is why many historians champion Genji as the first novel—it pioneered the deep exploration of characters’ inner worlds in an extended prose narrative, rather than verse, that defines modern novels.

Spanning 54 chapters and some 1,400 pages (in an unabridged English translation from 2021), The Tale of Genji follows the life of Hikaru Genji—“the shining prince”—through his many romances, political entanglements and, ultimately, his death. The novel is set during Japan’s Heian period (A.D. 794–1185).

The son of an emperor and his beloved mistress, Genji is handsome, charismatic, generous and highly educated, possessing an array of skills spanning music, poetry and academics. But his father denies him the throne, giving it instead to his half brother, whose mother later has Genji exiled. Genji inevitably returns to the Heian court, and his son assumes the throne after his half brother abdicates. Genji, himself, only ever attains the rank of “honorary retired emperor,” though he never actually reigned.

Although The Tale of Genji is centered around the titular character, the multigenerational saga also reveals the inner lives and perspectives of numerous characters, many of them female, of varying social stations through elegant prose and some 800 short poems (written in Genji’s voice). And it vividly details the complexities of love, sex and political intrigue in the Heian royal court. As a lady-in-waiting in the real-life Heian royal court, Murasaki Shikibu had keen insight into court politics, which she injected into her writing.

Historical evidence confirms Murasaki was writing her novel while working in the court, though exact dates for when she started or finished the project are not known. Some sources date Genji’s completion to 1008; others maintain it was finished around 1010.

Shikibu’s real name is unknown, as women at the time were referenced in relation to the men in their lives. Readers might even have created the author’s moniker: Shikibu translates to “Bureau of the Ceremonial,” her father’s ministerial position in court, and Murasaki is the name of a heroine in Genji (as well as a plant that produces purple dye).

The author’s anonymity didn’t prevent Shikibu’s novel from becoming one of the most influential works in Japanese literature—despite being fiction and written in kana script (known as “woman’s hand”), both of which were disparaged by Japanese men.