(1931-81), leading Egyptian poet, critic, playwright, translator and journalist. He was born in al-Zaḳāzīḳ in the Delta; in his early youth he learnt the Ḳurʾān by heart and read the classical poets and the modern romantics such as Ibrāhīm Nād̲j̲ī and Maḥmūd Ḥasan Ismāʿīl. Later on, during the 1940s he joined the Ik̲h̲wān al-Muslimūn [q.v.], but soon became disenchanted with their ideology and became interested in secular social realism, a view which he expressed in his al-Nās fī bilādī (“The people in my country”).
Ṣalāḥ graduated from Cairo University in 1951 and worked at t…