A new translation of Lady Nijo’s diary—one of classical Japan’s greatest literary works A
Penguin Classic Lady Nijo’s A Tale Unasked ( Towazugatari ) is the last and arguably the
finest among classical Japanese literature’s famous "women’s diaries." Thought to have been
completed around 1307 when the author was in her late forties the first two-thirds of this
autobiographical work document in rich and compelling detail the experiences of an imperial
concubine whose time at court was ruled and finally ruined by her passionate and complicated
love life. The final third of the work equally memorably describes her peripatetic life after
the emperor expelled her from the court in her mid-twenties and she became a nun wandering the
roads of Japan as a form of Buddhist austerity. Meredith McKinney's superb translation
breathes new life into Lady Nijo's fascinating diaries which survived her era in a single copy
and were rediscovered only in the 1940s.
