The Tale of Genji, which is celebrating its 1000th anniversary this year, is a literary masterpiece that has been compared to both Homer's Iliad and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Celebrated in Japan as the world's first novel, it is a work that has engendered many adaptations, including films, a symphony and countless manga versions. Genji has even loosely inspired some bestselling computer games, but the latest celebration of Lady Murasaki Shikibu's 11th century masterpiece takes the idea of literary adaptation to a whole new level.

The Robo-Murasaki is a foot-high robot developed by Robo-Garage, a company spun off from Kyoto University. The Geisha-bot, loosely modelled on Murasaki herself, recites the 1,000 pages of Genji with dramatic gestures and the flutter of a fan that the robot can hide up her sleeve.

Perhaps the playful nature of Genji's rambling adventures in the 11th century Japan suits the hyper-kitsch world of 21st century robotics. But would other literary masterpieces survive such a translation with credibility intact? One can just about imagine how an Alice-bot might retell her adventures in Wonderland; while perhaps someone could develop an electronic Sancho Panza to narrate Don Quixote, but when you start thinking of a Cyber-Claudius stuttering his way through the rise and fall of the Augustan Rome, you realise that literary robotics might have something of a limited appeal. Even so, in the future, robots might be asked to tell us all sorts of stories - the technology driving the robo-Murasaki is the humble mp3.