‘Abd al-Rahman al-Abnudi (1938-2015)
▻http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/21483`abd-al-rahman-al-abnudi-(1938-2015)
With the death of ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Abnudi (1938-2015), Egypt and the Arab world lost the last of the pioneers of colloquial poetry who have significantly enriched poetry written in the spoken Egyptian dialect and expanded its horizons. Together with Fuad Haddad (1927-85) and Salah Jahin (1930-86), Al-Abnudi was instrumental in moving Egyptian colloquial poetry beyond the poetics of mass mobilization and explicit political expression to more complex and diverse realms. Over the last two decades, al-Abnudi had become a familiar household face, voice and name (also nick-named al-Khal, or the uncle) through his frequent recitations of new as well as old poems of his and numerous interviews on satellite television shows.
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Following the military ouster of President Morsi in July 2013, al-Abnudi, like the majority of Egypt’s liberal and leftist intellectuals, expressed enthusiastic support for the new regime, a position which was controversial and seen by some of his fans as inconsistent with the opposition to autocracy that reigned in his poetry.