Here is the diary of a court lady of Japan from the golden age of Nara, over a thousand years ago. The Naran age, characterised by hierarchy, rigid adherence to tradition and the performance of ritual, was a sophisticated urban society as different from ours as can be imagined. But what is The Pillow Book of Lady Kasa? Is it a legitimate historical document or a flight of invention by a melancholy archaeologist, fatally infected by his own sad past? Either way, The Pillow Book of Lady Kasa strays painfully, touchingly close to the source of its own artifice. In his first novel, Barrie Sherwood weaves a lyrical mystery of two times, making a history that is transformed by fiction but which is no less real for the invention.