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Why did Ki Tsurayuki present The Tosa Diary as though a woman wrote it?
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Japanese literature
Three lines. Five, seven, five.
Ki Tsurayuki wrote The Tosa Diary (936) in the Japanese kana syllabary rather than the Chinese characters that were standard for men's diaries at the time. By pretending that a woman in his entourage was the author, he likely sought to justify his use of the vernacular script, which was more commonly associated with the literary output of court ladies during the Heian period.12