Heichū Monogatari also known as the Heichū Nikki (平中日記）) or Sadafun Nikki (（貞文日記）) is a mid Heian Period

Heian period

The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. The period is named after the capital city of Heian-kyō, or modern Kyōto. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese influences were at their height...

 Japanese poem

Japanese poetry

Japanese poets first encountered Chinese poetry during the Tang Dynasty. It took them several hundred years to digest the foreign impact, make it a part of their culture and merge it with their literary tradition in their mother tongue, and begin to develop the diversity of their native poetry. For...

 tale (歌物語）) Authorship unknown. It is believed to have come into existence between 960-965 AD. In total there are 39 sections to this tale. The construction of these tale revolves around the poems that comprise the core of each section. The main character is a man renowned for his love affairs known as Heichū Sadafun　(or Sadafumi).

Being a Poem Tale, it bears many similarities to Ise Monogatari (The Tales of Ise)

Further reading

Hulvey, Yumiko. REVIEW of Videen, Tales of Heichū. Journal of Asian Studies 50 (1991): 706.

Videen, Susan Downing . “Heichū Monogatari: and the Heichu Legend.” Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1979.

Videen, Susan Downing. Tales of Heichū. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.