A CITY can surprise us, including Baghdad in the 9th century. Abu Nuwas is part of that. We Indonesians get to know him in childhood, from second-hand stories from who-knows-where: he was clever, suave and funny, but also vulgar, and he lived during the rule of Harun Al-Rashid. Writers of Arab literary history, however, view him with awe: he was the poet that introduced the voice of modernity (hadtha) in a brilliant, but often difficult era.

Abu N