"The Tale of Genji," renowned as the world's first great novel, is now nearly 1,000 years old. The intervening centuries have not only elevated and reinforced its status as a literary paragon, they have also seen its characters and themes depicted in a multitude of pictorial arts.
Early on, courtiers enjoyed elaborately illustrated versions of the story recorded on scrolls. In fact, whether in these first illustrated scrolls or the innumerable paintings, prints, textiles and other renditions of "The Tale of Genji" that followed, the history of this novel is inseparable from the representative art it has inspired. This new version -- with single-page summaries in both Japanese and English of the original 54 chapters, accompanied by the richly detailed, colorful paper cut-out art of the late Masayuki Miyata -- is, therefore, a fitting commemoration of its first millennium.
This book is the fourth in a bilingual series featuring classic texts paired with Miyata's cut-outs. The others are Basho's haiku diary, "The Narrow Road to Oku," a collection of Manyoshu poems and "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter," Japan's oldest folktale. Japanese literature expert Donald Keene, who translated "The Narrow Road" and "Bamboo Cutter," maintains his association with the project, this time contributing a brief essay.