The world's first novel was written in Japan over 1,000 years ago.

Murasaki Shikibu was a lady-in-waiting at the Japanese Imperial Court during the Heian period. She wrote the story between 1000 and 1012 AD using a phonetic script called kana. At that time, men usually wrote in formal Chinese characters, but women used kana to write literature and diaries.The book has 54 chapters and more than 400 different characters. It follows the life and romances of a prince named Hikaru Genji. Unlike older myths or poems, this story describes the characters' thoughts and emotions in great detail. This style is called psychological realism.Literary experts note that this book appeared centuries before famous European novels. For example, Don Quixote was not published until 1605. The Tale of Genji also includes nearly 800 short poems that characters use to talk to each other.The original handwritten pages no longer exist. However, researchers study illustrated scrolls from the 1100s that show scenes from the story. These scrolls are kept in the Tokugawa Art Museum and the Gotoh Museum in Japan. Translating the old court language into modern English is so difficult that it often takes experts many years to finish.