Faiz Ahmed Faiz remembered on 110th birth anniversary
Hailed as one of the greatest, most inspiring and eloquent poets of South Asia, yesterday (Feb 13th) marked the 110th birth anniversary of the iconic revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
Glowing tributes were paid to his literary work by scholars and the media on the day.
Faiz was a Pakistani leftist poet and author. Not only was he one of the most celebrated writers of the Urdu language, but among his numerous accolades, Faiz was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and won the Lenin Peace Prize.
Born into a Tataley Jat family on February 13, 1911, in Kala Qader (Faiz Nagar), District Narowal, Punjab, in what was then British India, Faiz hailed from an eminent academic family that was well known in literary circles.
His home was often the venue of a gathering where literary luminaries like poets, writers and intellectuals assembled to promote the literacy movement in his native province. Faiz’s alma mater was Government College and Oriental College. He went on to serve in the British Indian Army and was awarded the British Empire Medal.
After independence, Faiz became the editor of The Pakistan Times and a leading member of the Communist Party of Pakistan before being arrested in 1951 for his alleged role in a conspiracy to overthrow the administration of the first Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan and replace it with a left-wing government.
Released after four years of incarceration, Faiz went on to become a notable member of the Progressive Writers’ Movement and eventually an aide to Bhutto administration, before going into self-exile to Beirut. Faiz’s literary work was posthumously publicly honoured when the Pakistan Government conferred upon him the nation’s highest civil award, Nishan-e-Imtiaz, in 1990. A collection of some of Faiz’s celebrated poetry was published in 2011, under the name of “Celebrating Faiz” edited by D P Tripathi.
The book also includes tributes by his family, by contemporaries and by scholars who knew of him through his poetry.
The Pakistan Academy of Letters will hold the 'Faiz Ahmad Faiz National Literary Seminar' on Monday (tomorrow).
Published in The Express Tribune, February 14th, 2021.