"In Dennis Washburn's new translation of The Tale of Genji, lovers of novels will have the literary experience denied them until now: for hours and weeks at a time they will be able to sink into the dark, titillating, sexy, sad, enraging, absorbing world of this, the world's first novel, written by Murasaki Shikibu, the imaginative genius court woman of eleventh-century Japan. Washburn eliminates the gap in centuries between us and that long-lost world, and preserves for us the freshness of vision and voice of that great writer from long ago and her Proustian chronicling of the darkening beauty of a world in decline, a world depleted of male erotic power and female depredation, of the tortures of jealousy and the frailness of art and beauty to console." -- Alan Tansman, University of California at Berkeley "A formidable accomplishment. The language is beautiful, the footnotes are helpful yet unobtrusive: Washburn has performed a great service by making this groundbreaking novel, written in the eleventh century, available to the English-speaking world in a version worthy of the Japanese masterpiece." -- Edith Grossman "Retranslations of a classic are always reason to celebrate. All the more so when it's the Genji, with all its complex characters and unforgettable episodes. One tries to begin logically, from the first page, but can't resist flipping ahead to locate favorite scenes and see how they are imagined anew... A fresh and invaluable Tale of Genji for both those of us reuniting with a familiar friend and those encountering it for the very first time." -- Valerie Henitiuk, editor-in-chief, Translation Studies, and author of Worlding Sei Shonagon: The Pillow Book in Translation "Award-winning translator Dennis Washburn's lucid and accessible rendering will introduce new readers to the entrancing narrative world of this great classic." -- David Lurie, Columbia University

Dennis Washburn is Jane and Raphael Bernstein Professor in Asian Studies at Dartmouth College. He holds a Ph.D. from Yale University in Japanese language and literature. He lives in Hanover, New Hampshire.