An English translation of the late tenth century Arabic lexicographer Ibn Khalawayh's list of names of lions. This unique collection engages an ancient scholarly practice of documenting with precision and clarity. Larsen's lively introduction, notes, and the 400 epithets are an engrossing work of cultural studies.

David Larsen's graduate studies in Comparative Literature ran parallel to years of activity in the San Francisco Bay Area's experimental poetry community, culminating in a verse collection The Thorn. During the 2011 uprising in Egypt he was a Fulbright Scholar based in Cairo. David Larsen has taught at U. C. Berkeley, Yale and Ohio State, and is currently a Clinical Professor of Liberal Studies at NYU.