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If you've ever fallen in love with a novel

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you know the moment:

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you look at the clock,

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it's one in the morning,

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and you still can't put the book down.

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You've been pulled into a world

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conjured from someone else's imagination,

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where the thoughts and feelings

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of the people on the pages

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are as real as your own.

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It's hard to imagine a time

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before novels as we know them existed --

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but there was, in fact, a first novel.

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And if we want to understand

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how it came into being,

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we have to look

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more than 1000 years into the past,

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at the writing desk of one woman.

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Her name was Murasaki Shikibu,

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or at least,

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that's the only name we can give her now.

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Born into an aristocratic Japanese family

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sometime in the 970s,

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she lived in at time when the name of women

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were rarely recorded.

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Instead, well-born women like Murasaki

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were given nicknames:

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usually related to the rank or position

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of a close male relative.

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She lived in an intensely-cloistered world

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where women were constantly shielded

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from public view by screens or curtains.

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Sometimes, it was easier to identify

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an aristocratic woman by the distinctive pattern

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of a protruding sleeve than by her face.

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Despite the often suffocating limitations

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on their lives,

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women like Murasaki were educated

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and expected to be highly literate.

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The granddaughter of a famous poet

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and the daughter of a scholar,

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Murasaki became conversant in Japanese

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and Chinese literature so quickly,

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she was considered something of a literary prodigy.

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In her diary, Murasaki recorded

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her father's reactions when he realized

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exactly how talented she was.

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He said,

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"Just my luck.

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What a pity she was not born a man."

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In her early twenties, she married a man

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old enough to be her father,

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who died only two years later,

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but not before they had a daughter.

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Instead of marrying again,

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the gifted young widow and mother

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began working on The Tale of Genji,

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an intricate saga of romance and intrigue,

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in the life of an imperial Prince.

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The Tale of Genji is often considered

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the first modern novel,

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because Murasaki offered readers

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not just a chronicle of events,

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but deep psychological insight into the characters

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and their inner lives.

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Her story made history because it was more

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than just a story:

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it was a complex literary portrait

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of what it means to be human.

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Although the hero of The Tale of Genji

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is a man named "Prince Genji,"

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Shikibu filled her novel with multifaceted

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female characters who provided a rare glimpse

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into how it felt to be a woman in her world.

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As Virginia Woolf later wrote,

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when Murasaki set out to illuminate

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the complicated life of the prince,

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she naturally chose the medium

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of other women's minds.

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The Tale of Genji earned Murasaki

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a permanent place in literary history.

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It may also have helped her secure a position

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at the imperial court,

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where she became an attendant and occasional

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tutor to the Empress Shoshi.

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Murasaki became quite close with the Empress,

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and even secretly taught her Chinese:

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a language only men were supposed to learn.

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Although it was a comfortable life,

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Murasaki was often lonely,

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and her literary fame made her the target

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of court gossips, who called her

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pretentious, arrogant, and unfriendly --

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complaints often heard about successful women

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even today.

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No one is sure exactly when Murasaki died,

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but the legacy she left behind

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changed Japanese literature forever,

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and left a mark on the broader world of fiction

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that can never be erased.

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Throughout history, great novels

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have traditionally been considered the domain

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of male writers,

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while tales of romance,

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especially those written by women,

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are often dismissed as frivolous or inferior.

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But history itself tells a very different story.

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Not only was the first novel a romance,

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but it was one of the greatest literary masterpieces

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in human history --

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and it was written by a woman.

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Because she dared to imagine the world

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in ways that no one had before,

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we can still hear her voice echoing through time

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more than a thousand years later,

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daring us to imagine worlds of our own.