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The 11th-century courtier who wrote what is thought to be the world's first novel. Christopher Harding portrays the lives of five colourful characters from Japan's past to answer the question, "Who are the Japanese"? Beginning in the 20th century, he works backwards through time to reveal different dimensions of Japanese identity, encompassing sport, art, culture, politics, warfare and religion. In his fourth essay, he compares Japan and the UK as mirror images of each other: two island nations, "both known for a certain reserve in their national characters, and both enjoying the stability that comes with constitutional monarchy." Murusaki Shikibu, who wrote "The Tale of Genji", had a ringside seat as lady-in-waiting to the eleventh century imperial court. "Here was a society blessed both with an almost impossible level of sophistication - in its poetry, pastimes, dress and general comportment and with female chroniclers capable of wringing every last delicious detail out of the personal foibles, fashion faux-pas and social missteps of those who inhabited it."

Dr Christopher Harding is Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His books include, "The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives" and "A History of Modern Japan: In Search of a Nation, 1850 – the Present"

The quoted translations are taken from "The Diary of Lady Murasaki" (Penguin, 1996) by Professor Richard Bowring.

Producer: Sheila Cook
Editor: Hugh Levinson