Gossamer Years: Love, Passion and Marriage in Old Japan - The Intimate Diary of a Female Courtier

"A self-portrait devastating in its honesty…written passionately and without a thought to how readers might judge her actions."—Donald Keene

Gossamer Years is a remarkably frank diary written by an unnamed noblewoman in Tenth-century Japan—the same period as Murasaki Shikibu's celebrated Tale of Genji. In her diary, the author describes her tempestuous and unhappy marriage and growing indignation at the many rival wives and mistresses taken by her husband, as was commonplace at the time. Too...