Daily Times

Forty years have passed since the demise of revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz as fans and literary enthusiasts are observing his death anniversary on Wednesday.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz was born on February 13, 1911, at Kala Qader in Narowal district of Punjab.

He was a notable member of the Progressive Writers’ Movement and an avowed Marxist. He received the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1962.

Faiz’ literary work was posthumously publicly honoured when the government conferred upon him the nation’s highest civil award of Nishan-e-Imtiaz, in 1990. The timeless quality of Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s poetry and its multi-layered resonances across cultures, have been a source of inspiration to many, including the distinguished academic Anjum Altaf, who transmuted and adapted Faiz’s poems into a 2018 collection, Trangressions: Poems Inspired by Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

His major literary works include,
‘Naqsh-e-Faryadi’, ‘Dast-e-Saba’, ‘Zindan-Nama’, ‘Dast-e-Tah-e-Sung’, ‘Mere Dil Mere Musafir’,
‘Sar-e-Wadi-e-Sina’ which have been combined as one book ‘Nuskha Haa-e-Wafa’. He passed away in Lahore on November 20, 1984. Saif Ali Khan once said Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Mirza Ghalib his favorite poets in a viral interview.

Saif Ali Khan’s one of the old interviews where he mentioned Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Mirza Ghalib as his favorite poets remains the Internet’s favorite.

He also admitted reading Western poetry as he studied there and revealed that his father says “Faiz is a phenomenal poet.”