Saturday, December 20, 2008

What is "Genji Monogatari"?

"Genji Monogatari" is one of the most famous novels written by Murasaki Shikibu in the 11th century. It's a story of Hikaru Genji, a Japanese version of Don Juan. It's written in old Japanese and most of us modern Japanese people cannot read and understand the story without translation. You can read it in English by the translation of Arthur Waley. Yosano Akiko and Setouchi Jyakuchou's modern Japanese translation are also available.

3 comments:

owenandbenjamin said...

I english it is called The Tale of Genji.

Davecat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Davecat said...

Thanks for your comment. "Tha Tale of Genji" is an English translation by Arthur Waley. It's amazing that he not only read the great classic literature but put it into another language. I guess there weren't good dictionaries available those days.