Egypt's poet Ahmed al-Shahawy said in a statement for al-Bawaba News Saturday night sixty percent of his poetic production was written abroad. Shahawy, the most prominent contemporary poet in Egypt, added he has produced the majority of his poems in airports and hotels, stressing on the importance of communicating with foreign cultures. "We have to get closer to foreign cultures to get benefits without neglecting our great Arab heritage," Shahawy, who participated in numerous international poetry festivals, said. Shahawy, laureate of the UNESCO Poetry Prize in 1995 and the Kafafy Poetry Prize in 1998, is due to participate Aug. 26 in a poetry reading in Algeria and in October in the ‘Americas Poetry Festival 2015' in New York. Shahawy's poems have been translated into numerous international languages including Turkish.