section_path: Works
section_name: Works
paragraph_text: Works
  
  Three works are attributed to Murasaki: The Tale of Genji, The Diary of Lady Murasaki and Poetic Memoirs, a collection of 128 poems. Her work is considered important for its reflection of the creation and development of Japanese writing, during a period when Japanese shifted from an unwritten vernacular to a written language. Until the 9th century, Japanese language texts were written in Chinese characters using the man'yōgana writing system. A revolutionary achievement was the development of kana, a true Japanese script, in the mid-to late 9th century. Japanese authors began to write prose in their own language, which led to genres such as tales (monogatari) and poetic journals (Nikki Bungaku). Historian Edwin Reischauer writes that genres such as the monogatari were distinctly Japanese and that Genji, written in kana, "was the outstanding work of the period".