Diario di Izumi Shikibu

Izumi Shikibu, poetess and court lady who lived between the second half of the tenth century and the first half of the eleventh century, is famous for her poetry of romantic inspiration, but above all for her extramarital affairs with two imperial princes. In the following centuries in Japan were written many texts of various kinds on her "scandalous stories” of love celebrating the strong personality of this woman who was able to break the patterns of a rigid social organizations. The Diary of Izumi Shikibu (Izumi Shikibu nikki) - anonymous work formally but that could be attributed to the same Izumi Shikibu - is the account of one of these relationships. It describes a romantic love at that time unacceptable, because it is socially unbalanced, told from the point of view of the female protagonist who lived in Japan a thousand years ago.