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Why did hiragana become important for Japanese literature?

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Japanese calligraphy — Japanese language Record of a haiku exchange on *kaishi* writing paper by Japanese poet Bashō and one of his pupils in the teacher's own handwriting, 17th century, from a hanging scroll (ink on paper).

Hiragana became essential to Japanese literature because it provided a purely phonetic, syllabic script that allowed for the full and free expression of the Japanese language, which is grammatically distinct from Chinese. Before its development, Japanese writers relied on Chinese characters (kanji), which were often ill-suited for representing native Japanese grammatical particles, verb tenses, and endings.12

By the 9th century, the simplification of man’yōgana—a system that used Chinese characters for their phonetic value—led to the creation of the flowing, cursive hiragana script. While men often continued to use formal, stilted Chinese for official documents, hiragana was adopted for more personal and creative purposes, including poetry, personal communication, and literature.132

Because it was highly stylized and elegant, hiragana—sometimes referred to as "women’s hand" (onna-de)—became the primary medium for court women to produce masterpieces of world literature, such as The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu and The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon. Its invention was an epochal event that enabled the flourishing of a uniquely Japanese literary culture.42