The eighth-century ritsuryo state system, with its system of ranks, ministries, and university, continued to operate throughout the Heian period and provided the framework for a court-based state system, which emerged at the beginning of the tenth century. One of the major characteristics of this court-based state was gradual concentration of power outside the capital in the provincial governors, drawn from middle-rank aristocrats, who were the fathers of women writers of this period. The early Heian period was marked by the continued prominence of Chinese-based literature and culture and the gradual introduction of vernacular cultural forms, particularly the court-based vernacular literature written in kana, a new syllabary, which flourished from the tenth century onward. One of the striking characteristics of the emergence of Japanese vernacular literature was the central role played by women writers who were closely associated with the imperial court in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, such as Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shonagon.

Genji monogatari or The Tale of Genji was composed by Murasaki Shikibu around the first decade of the eleventh century. Genji monogatari is divided into two major sections: chapters 1 to 41, which describe the story of Genji and the women in his life, and chapters 42 to 54, which deals with Genji's progeny. The first section is subdivided into: chapters 1 to 33, narrating the rise, fall, and rise again of the young Genji, and chapters 34 to 41, which portray him becoming increasingly introspective and contemplative. The story begins with a love affair between the emperor and Kiritsubo. Captivated by her close resemblance to the late Kiritsubo, Genji's father takes in a new consort, known to as Fujitsubo. The earliest documented evidence of Genji reading is found in the diary of the author herself, which claims that figures like the poet Fujiwara no Kinto, Fujiwara no Michinaga, and the Ichijo Emperor read at least parts of Genji monogatari.