清少納言 in Japanese Sei Shonagon (c. 966 -1017) was a Japanese author and a court lady who served the Empress Teishi (Sadako) around the year 1000 during the middle Heian period. She is best known as the author of "The Pillow Book" (枕草子 makura no sōshi).

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (芥川 龍之介) was one of the first prewar Japanese writers to achieve a wide foreign readership, partly because of his technical virtuosity, partly because his work seemed to represent imaginative fiction as opposed to the mundane accounts of the I-novelists of the time, partly because of his brilliant joining of traditional material to a modern sensibility, and partly because of film director Kurosawa Akira's masterful adaptation of two of his short stories for the screen. Akutagawa was born in the Kyōbashi district Tokyo as the eldest son of a dairy operator named Shinbara Toshizō and his wife Fuku. He was named "Ryūnosuke" ("Dragon Offshoot") because he was born in the Year of the Dragon, in the Month of the Dragon, on the Day of the Dragon, and at the Hour of the Dragon (8 a.m.). Seven months after Akutagawa's birth, his mother went insane and he was adopted by her older brother, taking the Akutagawa family name. Despite the shadow this experience cast over Akutagawa's life, he benefited from the traditional literary atmosphere of his uncle's home, located in what had been the "downtown" section of Edo. At school Akutagawa was an outstanding student, excelling in the Chinese classics. He entered the First High School in 1910, striking up relationships with such classmates as Kikuchi Kan, Kume Masao, Yamamoto Yūzō, and Tsuchiya Bunmei. Immersing himself in Western literature, he increasingly came to look for meaning in art rather than in life. In 1913, he entered Tokyo Imperial University, majoring in English literature. The next year, Akutagawa and his former high school friends revived the journal Shinshichō (New Currents of Thought), publishing translations of William Butler Yeats and Anatole France along with original works of their own. Akutagawa published the story Rashōmon in the magazine Teikoku bungaku (Imperial Literature) in 1915. The story, which went largely unnoticed, grew out of the egoism Akutagawa confronted after experiencing disappointment in love. The same year, Akutagawa started going to the meetings held every Thursday at the house of Natsume Sōseki, and thereafter considered himself Sōseki's disciple. The lapsed Shinshichō was revived yet again in 1916, and Sōseki lavished praise on Akutagawa's story Hana (The Nose) when it appeared in the first issue of that magazine. After graduating from Tokyo University, Akutagawa earned a reputation as a highly skilled stylist whose stories reinterpreted classical works and historical incidents from a distinctly modern standpoint. His overriding themes became the ugliness of human egoism and the value of art, themes that received expression in a number of brilliant, tightly organized short stories conventionally categorized as Edo-mono (stories set in the Edo period), ōchō-mono (stories set in the Heian period), Kirishitan-mono (stories dealing with premodern Christians in Japan), and kaika-mono (stories of the early Meiji period). The Edo-mono include Gesaku zanmai (A Life Devoted to Gesaku, 1917) and Kareno-shō (Gleanings from a Withered Field, 1918); the ōchō-mono are perhaps best represented by Jigoku hen (Hell Screen, 1918); the Kirishitan-mono include Hokōnin no shi (The Death of a Christian, 1918), and kaika-mono include Butōkai(The Ball, 1920). Akutagawa married Tsukamoto Fumiko in 1918 and the following year left his post as English instructor at the naval academy in Yokosuka, becoming an employee of the Mainichi Shinbun. This period was a productive one, as has already been noted, and the success of stories like Mikan (Mandarin Oranges, 1919) and Aki (Autumn, 1920) prompted him to turn his attention increasingly to modern materials. This, along with the introspection occasioned by growing health and nervous problems, resulted in a series of autobiographically-based stories known as Yasukichi-mono, after the name of the main character. Works such as Daidōji Shinsuke no hansei(The Early Life of

Lady Nijō (後深草院二条 Go-Fukakusain no Nijō) (1258 – after 1307) was a Japanese historical figure. She was a concubine of Emperor Go-Fukakusa from 1271 to 1283, and later became a Buddhist nun. After years of travelling, around 1304-7 she wrote an autobiographical novel, Towazugatari (literally "An Unasked-For Tale", commonly translated into English as The Confessions of Lady Nijō), the work for which she is known today, and which is also the only substantial source of information on her life. Lady Nijō was a member of the powerful Fujiwara Nijō Family. Her father and paternal grandfather held important positions at the imperial court, and many of her relatives and ancestors had high reputations for their literary abilities. Her real name does not survive. The name "Nijō" was given to her at the court: it was common practice at the time to designate court ladies by street names, and "Nijō" ("Second Avenue") designates a high rank. According to the Towazugatari, Emperor Go-Fukakusa was in love with Nijō's mother, Sukedai. However, she died shortly after Nijō was born, and Go-Fukakusa turned his affections to Nijō. She was taken to the court at the age of four, and was subsequently raised there. The Towazugatari begins in 1271, when Nijō, aged 14, is given by her father to Go-Fukakusa as a concubine. The novel proceeds to describe Nijō's life at the court, which was plagued by numerous troubles. Her father died when she was 15, and her relationship with the emperor was strained from the beginning, because she took several other lovers over the years, including one whom she knew before becoming a concubine. Matters were complicated further by Nijō's pregnancies: the only child she bore to Go-Fukakusa died in infancy, and the other three children she had were not by the emperor. Go-Fukakusa's consort, Higashi-nijō, was greatly displeased with Nijō's behaviour and Go-Fukakusa's apparent affinity for the concubine. Ultimately, it was due to Higashi-nijō's request that Nijō was expelled from the court in 1283. Nijō's fate is revealed in books 4 and 5 of Towazugatari. Like many women in Medieval Japan whose lives met with unfortunate circumstances, Nijō became a Buddhist nun. She traveled to saсred and historical places, returning to the capital regularly. Book 4 begins in 1289, skipping several years (thus leading scholars to believe that some material may be missing); book 5 skips some more years and describes Nijō's grief at Go-Fukakusa's death in 1304. Towazugatari ends in 1306, and nothing is known about what happened to Nijō afterwards or when she died. Nijō's autobiography did not enjoy wide circulation. A single 17th-century copy was discovered in the 20th century, with several gaps in book 5, noted by the scribe. The scholar who found Towazugatari was Yamagishi Tohukei. The book was published in 1950, with a complete annotated edition following in 1966. There were two English translations; The Confessions of Lady Nijō by Karen Brazell (1973), and Lady Nijō's own story; Towazugatari: the candid diary of a thirteenth-century Japanese imperial concubine by Wilfrid Whitehouse and Eizo Yanagisawa (1974).

Murasaki Shikibu, or Lady Murasaki as she is sometimes known in English (Japanese: 紫式部), was a Japanese novelist, poet, and a maid of honor of the imperial court during the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1008, one of the earliest and most famous novels in human history. "Murasaki Shikibu" was not her real name; her actual name is unknown, though some scholars have postulated that her given name might have been Takako (for Fujiwara Takako). Her diary states that she was nicknamed "Murasaki" ("purple wisteria blossom") at court, after a character in The Tale of Genji. "Shikibu" refers to her father's position in the Bureau of Ceremony (shikibu-shō). ————————————- Murasaki Shikibu. (2007, October 8). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:03, October 19, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?t...

Ihara Saikaku (井原 西鶴) was a Japanese poet and creator of the "floating world" genre of Japanese prose (ukiyo-zōshi). Born the son of the wealthy merchant Hirayama Tōgo (平山藤五) in Osaka, he first studied haikai poetry under Matsunaga Teitoku, and later studied under Nishiyama Sōin of the Danrin School of poetry, which emphasized comic linked verse. Scholars have described numerous extraordinary feats of solo haikai composition at one sitting; most famously, over the course of a single day and night in 1677, Saikaku is reported to have composed at least 16,000 haikai stanzas, with some rumors placing the number at over 23,500 stanzas. Later in life he began writing racy accounts of the financial and amorous affairs of the merchant class and the demimonde. These stories catered to the whims of the newly prominent merchant class, whose tastes of entertainment leaned toward the arts and pleasure districts.