Once again, my radio listening habits coincide with work, as today sees the start of a dramatisation loosely based on the 11th-century work of Japanese literature, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon. The original book, written by a lady-in-waiting to the Empress, is described in David Greer’s excellent introductory article in the Kyoto Journal as ‘a pastiche of idiosyncratic lists, diary entries, and reminiscences — one of Japan’s earliest prose masterpieces’. A discussion of its role in the development of Japanese literature and the differences between western and Japanese literature can be heard via the BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour website for the next week, as can the drama.
Sei Shōnagon. Image from WIkimedia Commons, in the public domain because copyright has expired.
Selections from The Pillow Book were first translated into English by Arthur Waley, followed by a complete two-volume version by Ivan Morris. For those with access to the JSTOR online archives, the Morris translation has been reviewed in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and in the Journal of Asian Studies.
Shōnagon’s contemporary, Murasaki Shikibu, wrote what is widely recognised as the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji – see this earlier Intute blog posting.
