Murasaki Shikibu

A lady-in-waiting at the Heian court, Murasaki wrote The Tale of Genji: 54 chapters, hundreds of characters, and an interior life rendered with a subtlety European fiction would not attempt for another seven centuries. She wrote in vernacular Japanese at a time when men wrote in Chinese, making a 'women's script' into a literary language.

• Composed The Tale of Genji, widely held to be the world's first novel and first psychological novel
• Kept a diary that is a primary historical source for Heian court life and politics
• Wrote a collection of 128 poems that shaped the waka tradition
• Legitimised kana, the vernacular syllabary, as a vehicle for serious literature

Genji is a compulsory reference in Japanese education and a continuing engine of manga, anime, film and fashion; her face appeared on the 2,000-yen note. Globally she anchors the argument that the novel is not a European invention, reframing world literature curricula. Her method — narrating events through the shifting inner states of many characters — is standard technique in contemporary fiction and prestige television.

She married Fujiwara no Nobutaka and had one daughter, Kenshi, born around 999. The literary gift passed directly down.