Egypt bids farewell to Fagoumi, the 'poet of the people'

“Prisons, grief and woes can be overcome, oh Egypt! Your love intensifies with oppression.” This is an excerpt from the poem “I love you Egypt,” one of the most famous revolutionary vernacular poems in Egypt. This poem is the most popular piece by Ahmed Fouad Negm, known as “Fagoumi.” Egyptians mourned Negm’s death with heavy hearts on social networking sites and in various media outlets. Negm died at the age of 84 on Dec. 3, 2013.

Negm, who spent a total of 18 years in various prisons, was jailed seven times after his career began in 1962. Egyptians loved him dearly and were fond of his poetry, which railed against the ruling regimes. While he was dubbed the “poet of the people,” successive Egyptian presidents harbored hatred for him, detaining him in prison cells. His imprisonment, however, did not deter him from playing a major role in galvanizing the student movement and trade union struggle, especially during the era of President Anwar Sadat, who called Negm “the lewd poet.”

Negm’s tough childhood was a key factor in shaping the way he expressed the pulse of the poor and strengthened his determination to fight the ruling regimes and defend social justice since the era of President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Negm was born on May 23, 1929, in the village of Kafr Abu Negm in the Sharqiya governorate. His mother was a housewife while his father served as a police officer. He had 17 siblings, five of whom are still alive. Negm went through a hard childhood after the death of his father. In 1936, he was placed in an orphanage in Zagazig where he met a youth who became the renowned singer Abdel Halim Hafez. In 1945, at the age of 17, he left the orphanage and began working for the English military camps. He later moved between modest occupations, working as a tailor, a farmer, a construction worker and a railway worker. He learned to read and write on his own.