After disliking the liberties Fitzgerald saw fit to take, I wanted to read Khayyam in what would be considered a good English translation. That’s where Avery and Heath-Stubbs came in, and though some of their translations sounded a bit too contemporary in their language at times, I was overall very pleased.

Perhaps what made me love this book even more were the supplementary texts — almost all of them were things I already knew, but the few gaps they filled in proved to be utterly informative. You could buy this blind, and still be equipped with all the necessary background information thanks to the introduction, translation notes, and the appendixes.

Because I got mine second hand online, I had no idea it involved so many Persian paintings in colour! They’re all from the Safavid period, mainly in Isfahan style, and made this an even more beautiful book.

As for Khayyam, he’s marvellous. He’s certainly not an orthodox mystic, but he remains a mysterious figure — was he an atheist as religious fanatics made him out to be, or was his relationship with religion just more rooted in Persian traditions? Either way, he was beyond his times, and his ruba’is will make you pause and think, and hopefully, rejoice.

A necessary reading for anyone who claims to be into poetry. One of the finest this world has ever seen.