I am Murasaki Shikibu, I was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. I am best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, widely considered to be one of the world's first novels, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. I am a descriptive name; my personal name is unknown, but I may have been Fujiwara no Kaoriko (藤原香子), who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting.