Very little is known about the author of The Pillow Book. It is known as Shônagon Sei, which was the nickname earned during his service in court during the decade from 990 to 1000 Sei is the Chinese reading of the first ideogram of his name, Kiyohara. Shônagon designates its office at the court: junior assistant Empress Sadako (976-1001). Without absolute certainty, is repeated born in 966 and was the daughter of Motosuke, poet of some repute. It ensures that served the Empress until she died, and the second half of his life all guesswork: they continued to care for this or that lady of the imperial family, but almost all traditions agree imagine her as an old woman dies very poor. An anecdote that happened a period of seclusion and abstinence, away from the court, reprimanded for using an unhappy expression. They say that the expression which offended the empress was kurashinikanekeru, "have been hard to bear." When he returned, the ladies were criticized because they felt that "had presumptuously believed in the nostalgic words with which the Empress had spoken to her." Tradition ranked as the literary and political rival of Murasaki Shikibu Genji-author of Romance and it is true that served different empresses An appointment diary Murasaki is put forward as evidence. "Sei Shônagon, for example, is terribly conceited. It is deemed so severe that even spreads its written Chinese characters, but if you look carefully, leave much to be desired. Someone who makes such an effort to be different from the others is doomed to lose the esteem of the people, and can only augurársele a difficult future. Surely that is a gifted woman. However, if one gives vent to his emotions, even in the most inappropriate circumstances, if a test every interesting thing that presents itself, people will consider it frivolous. And how can a woman like work things fine. "