Booktalk: The Tale of Genji
November 14, 2001
Booktalk: The Tale of Genji
 Discussion with Professor Haruo Shirane (Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature, Columbia University) 403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam Ave.) 6:00 PM Widely acknowledged as the world’s first novel, and considered by many to be one of the finest, The Tale of Genji was written by Murasaki Shikibu in the first decade of the eleventh century. In this booktalk, Royall Tyler, recently retired from Australian National University and currently a Visiting Professor at Harvard University, will discuss his recently published translation of Lady Murasaki’s exquisite portrait of court life in medieval Japan, only the third English translation of the novel in its entirety. Professor Tyler’s eagerly anticipated translation, detailed and poetic, remains scrupulously true to the Japanese original while appealing immediately to the modern reader as well. Tyler considers his version “a new, more detailed and more fully engaging Genji than has yet been seen in a language outside Japanese.” |
