Murasaki Shikibu
- 978 - 1015
- daughter of court official Fujiwara Tametoki
- sat in on brother's Chinese literature lessons
- "Tale of Genji"
- Diary "[author name] nikki"
- rival of Lady Sei Shonagan
Sei Shonagan
- 966 - 1013
- lady-in-waiting to the Empress
- rival of Lady Murasaki
- "Pillow Book" about life at the Japanese court in Heian Period
Zeami
- 1363 - 1443
- aka: Kanze Motokiyo
- second master of the [family name] theatrical school
- regarded as the greatest playwright of the No theater
- "Atsumori", "Robe of Feathers", "Birds of Sorrow"
- "Fushi Kaden" is the manual for his pupils
Matsuo Basho
- 1644 - 1694
- pseudonym of Munefusa
- master of the haiku
- "The Narrow Road to the Deep North"
- took pseudonym from the name of his hut, "Cottage of the Plantain Tree
Chikamatsu Monzaemon
- 1653 - 1725
- Japan's first professional dramatist
- originally named Sugimori Nobumori
- wrote more than 150 plays for the bunraku (puppet theater) and kabuki (popular theater)
- historical romances (mono) and domestic tragedies (wamono)
- "The Battles
Akutagawa Ryunosuke
- 1892 - 1927
- mother died and father gave him up to relatives
- short story "Rashomon"
- committed suicide by overdose
- "A Note To a Certain Old Friend" suicide note was published
- award named after him for best serious work of fiction
Kawabata Yasunari
- 1899 - 1972
- "palm of the hand" works of only a few pages
- friend of Mushima Yukio
- 1968 Nobel Prize for Literature (FIRST Japanese recipient)
- protested the Cultural Revolution
- "Thousand Cranes" and "The Sound of the Mountain" and "Snow Country
Mushima Yukio
- 1925 - 1970
- novelist with theme of traditional values vs. spiritual emptiness
- failed to qualify for military service in WW2
- organized the Tate no kai (right-winged society)
- "Confessions of a Mask"
- "The Sea of Fertility" (Spring Snow, Runaway H
Endo Shusaku
- 1923 - 1996
- converted to Catholicism at age 11
- "White Man" and "Yellow Man" contrasting Japanese and Western values
- "Silence" and "The Samurai
Oe Kenzaburo
- 1935 - present
- 1944 Nobel Prize for Literature
- "Shiiku" ("The Catch in the Shadow of the Sunrise)
- "A Personal Matter" and "The Silent Cry" about being the father of a brain-damaged child
- search for cultural and ideological roots