"Carousing with Gazelles" presents accurate and unbowdlerized translations of some of Abu Nuwas's most celebrated poems-which have mostly remained untranslated into English due to the pressures of pious Puritanism and homophobia. In fact, Abu Nuwas remains largely untranslated into ANY European language, for the same reason: he is, by European standards, shocking. More than that, there are many who consider him the greatest poet who ever wrote in Arabic.