Ahmed Fouad Negm

Ahmed Fouad Negm won the 2013 Prince Claus Awards for ‘Unwavering Integrity’.

In the early hours of 3 December 2013, Negm died at the age of 84 in Cairo. Although he had been ill for a long time, publisher Mohamed Hashem said Negm sounded fine the day before his death, but remarked further that his voice was "a little heavy". Negm's funeral took place in Al-Hussein Mosque, Cairo.

In 2007, Negm was chosen by the United Nations Poverty Action as Ambassador of the poor.

He is the subject of the book A Homeland Called Desire (Merit House, Cairo, 2005) by Egyptian poet Rana al-Tonsi.

In 1962, Negm was introduced to Imam by a friend who believed that the two, poet Negm and composer Imam, could make a perfect duo. On the first occasion, Negm noticed that Imam took over an hour to tweak the strings of the Oud before starting his first demonstration to the new guest. Negm shouted "Allah" upon listening to Imam's singing and playing the Oud. The blind Sheikh was equally longing for inspiring words of the sort Negm had. That was the spark that lasted 30 years of concerted writing by Negm, composing by Imam, and singing by the two combined.

Negm was quick enough to sense that the blind Sheikh was a hidden treasure of Islamic literacy and music talent, and with his physical handicap, he could use the help of Negm's eyes and words. Hence, Negm proposed to stay in Imam's residence. As he recounted, his other rented room has properties worth 6 Egyptian pounds, thus if he threw away the key for his other room, the landlord was required three months before breaking into the room and possessing its content. Negm took the risk, abandoned his rented room with its contents and stuck with Sheikh Imam from 1962 throughout 1995.

When his father died, when he was six years old. He went to live with his uncle Hussein in Zagazig, but was placed in an orphanage in 1936 where he first met famous singer Abdel Halim Hafez. In 1945, at the age of 17, he left the orphanage and returned to his village to work as a shepherd. Later, he moved to Cairo to live with his brother who eventually kicked him out only to return to his village again to work in one of the English camps while helping with guerilla operations.

Ahmed Fouad Negm (Arabic: أحمد فؤاد نجم, pronounced [ˈæħmæd foˈʔæːd ˈneɡm]; 22 May 1929 – 3 December 2013), popularly known as el-Fagommi الفاجومي ([elfæˈɡuːmi]), was an Egyptian vernacular poet. Negm is well known for his work with Egyptian composer Sheikh Imam, as well as his patriotic and revolutionary Egyptian Arabic poetry. Negm has been regarded as "a bit of a folk hero in Egypt."