Since the days of the earliest civilisations, storytelling has sat at the heart of communication. From tales depicted in cave paintings and hieroglyphics and passed down through the oral tradition all the way to the stories of television, cinema and even viral videos and Twitter threads, storytelling is a way of understanding the world and connecting to those around us and those living completely different lives to our own. Novels are one of the most accessible and popular methods of storytelling, but they didn't come onto the scene until the 11th century, when what is often considered to be the world's oldest novel came from an unlikely source. And like many of the world's greatest, largely anonymous innovations, it came from a woman: Japanese author Murasaki Shikibu.
You'd be forgiven for not knowing Lady Murasaki's name – even ‘Lady Murasaki’ is a pseudonym – as
