The world's first novel was written by a woman around 1010
A Japanese court lady wrote a 54-chapter psychological epic centuries before the European novel existed.
The work many scholars call the world’s first novel was written in Japan around 1010 CE by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court during the Heian period.
The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari) runs to 54 chapters and roughly 750,000 words, following the romances, rivalries and quiet sorrows of the nobleman Prince Genji and the generation that follows him. What sets it apart from earlier myths and fairy-tale-like prose is its psychological realism — its characters have inner lives, contradictions and changing emotions.
Britannica calls it “generally considered the world’s first novel,” written more than three centuries before Chaucer and six before Cervantes.
It is also one of the first novels by a woman to win global recognition, and it offers an unmatched window into the refined, ritual-bound world of the Heian court. A thousand years on, it is still being retranslated and read worldwide.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
