Murasaki Shikibu
c. 973 – 1014 · 41 years · Heian-kyō (Kyoto) · Asia
A court lady who wrote The Tale of Genji, often called the world's first novel.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 10th century
Portrait: Tosa Mitsuoki (1617 - 1691) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Æthelred the Unready — king who paid off the Vikings with Danegeld, 7 years older
- Hugh Capet — founder of the Capetian dynasty, 33 years older
- Cnut the Great — Danish king who ruled a North Sea empire, 22 years younger
- Edward the Confessor — pious king who built Westminster Abbey, 30 years younger
- Robert II the Pious — pious king excommunicated for marrying a kinswoman, 1 year older
- Henry II — last Ottonian emperor, founder of the see of Bamberg, canonised as a saint, born the same year
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vladimir the Great — Grand Prince of Kiev, 13 years older
- Yaroslav the Wise — Grand Prince of Kiev, 5 years younger
- Sviatopolk the Accursed — prince of Kiev blamed by the chronicles for murdering Boris and Gleb, 7 years younger
Middle East
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) — physician and philosopher, 7 years younger
- Ferdowsi — Persian poet, 33 years older
Asia
- Sei Shōnagon — writer and court lady, 7 years older
- Al-Biruni — polymath, born the same year
Americas
- Leif Erikson — Norse explorer, 3 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — aged 15, Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — aged 27, Africa
- c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — aged 27, Europe
- 1006 Supernova SN 1006 — aged 33, Africa
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — aged 37, Asia