Murasaki Shikibu is one of the first novelists that we know of. She wrote Kenji no Monogatari or tales of Kenji, which is, let's just say, inspired by her life as a lady in the high courts to write this book, she was actually involved in the courts and she used to journal about what she saw. Now, a lot of the journal, the Shiki Boniki, has been destroyed because it's old, right? You are talking about the first novelist ever, period