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Tang poetry's exuberant genius, memorised across East Asia.

The 'poet-historian' whose verse recorded a dynasty's collapse.

The Pillow Book invented the list-essay a millennium before the internet.

Wrote the world's first psychological novel, a thousand years ago.

Solved cubics geometrically, reformed the calendar, wrote the Rubaiyat.

Sufi poet whose Masnavi is among the best-selling poetry on Earth today.

Persia's beloved lyric poet; his divan is still consulted as an oracle.

Commissioned Hangul, the alphabet that made Korea literate.