Kagerō Nikki
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Kagerō Nikki (蜻蛉日記, The Mayfly Diary) is a work of classical Japanese literature, written around 974, that falls under the genre of nikki bungaku, or diary literature. The author of Kagerō Nikki was a woman known only as the Mother of Michitsuna. Using a combination of waka poems and prose, she conveys the life of a noblewoman during the Heian period.
In English Kagerō Nikki is often called The Gossamer Years, which is the title given to the first English translation by Edward Seidensticker. The term kagerō has three possible meanings: it may mean a mayfly; a heat wave; or a thin film of cobweb, which is the meaning proposed by the English Orientalist Arthur Waley.[1]