12 Facts About Ahmed Shawqi

Ahmed Shawqi's family was prominent and well-connected with the court of the Khedive Ismael of Egypt.

Ahmed Shawqi was assigned to represent the Egyptian government at the Orientalist Conference held in Geneva, until World War I broke out and the British deposed of the Khedive.

Ahmed Shawqi remained there until 1920, when he returned to Egypt.

Ahmed Shawqi used to live in 'Karmet Ibn Hani' or Ibn Hani's Vineyard at Al-Matariyyah area near the palace of the Khedive Abbas II at Saray El-Qobba until he was exiled.

Ahmed Shawqi met Mohammed Abdel Wahab, and introduced him for the first time to art, making him his protege as he gave him a suite in his house.

Ahmed Shawqi was the first in modern Arabic literature to write poetic plays.

Ahmed Shawqi wrote chapters of prose, collected under the title The Markets of Gold.

Ahmed Shawqi is considered as a "greatest" poet within the Arabic Neoclassicist movement by scholars.

Ahmed Shawqi's work was a part of some of the Nahda's main literary and cultural debates, in which tradition, authenticity, and formality were positioned against experimentation, vulgarity, and Westernization.

Ahmed Shawqi's work is regularly celebrated at the El Sawy Culture Wheel, a cultural center in Cairo.

Ahmed Shawqi's granddaughter Ikbal El-Alailly was a central figure in Egypt's surrealist poetry movement.

Ahmed Shawqi's other granddaughter Khadiga Riad was an abstract, surrealist painter.