Around the year 1000 a lady-in-waiting at the Heian court kept a notebook of lists, anecdotes and opinions: hateful things, elegant things, lovers who leave clumsily, letters snatched away, festivals and court rivalries. Arthur Waley translated about a quarter of it, choosing the liveliest passages and introducing them with an account of Japan in the tenth century.
A classic of world literature in a famous translation, as fresh and opinionated as a modern diary. Download the free EPUB.