100th birth anniversary of Faiz Ahmed Faiz


LAHORE: The 100th birth anniversary of revolutionary poet and journalist Faiz Ahmed Faiz was observed on Sunday,13 Feb 2011

Several ceremonies and events are being organised across the country, including Lahore, to pay rich tributes to the legendary poet on his birth centennial. Many foreign poets, scholars, writers and litterateurs have also arrived in Pakistan to participate in the ceremonies being held in connection with the birth anniversary of Faiz. Indian poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar and his wife and actress Shabana Azmi are also among those who have arrived in the country to participate in the centennial ceremonies.

President Asif Ali Zardari had already announced the year 2011 as the “Year of Faiz”.

Faiz was born in 1911 in Kala Kader village, Sialkot, where he also received his early education. Afterwards, he got admitted to the Government College (University), Lahore. He began his professional career as a lecturer of English in an educational institute in Amritsar, in the present day Indian Punjab.

After the Second World War, Faiz entered the field of journalism and distinguished himself as the editor of Pakistan Times. He was charged with complicity in the Rawalpindi conspiracy case and was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in 1951.

The term gave him a firsthand experience of harsh realities of life and provided him with the leisure to think out his thoughts and express them into poetry. Two of his books, Dast-e-Saba and Zindan Nama, are the products of this period of imprisonment.

As a poet, Faiz began writing on the conventional themes of love and beauty, but soon these conventional themes got submerged in larger social and political issues of the day. The traditional grief of love gets fused with the travails of the afflicted humanity, and Faiz used his poetry to champion the cause of socialistic humanism.

The poetic works of the late legendary poet has won the hearts of the people of South Asia. His first published accumulation was Naqsh-e-Faryadi, which inspired many young poets. In 1971, after the bifurcation of united Pakistan, the newly-elected government appointed him as a cultural adviser, the period, in which he laid the foundation of the Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA).

Faiz’s poems flash a deep background against unrighteous and impishness, though he tried to pull out these things from society so everyone could live with peace and love. His remarkable books were ‘Nuskha-e-Hai Wafa’, ‘Naqsh-e-Faryadi’, ‘Dast-e-Saba’, ‘Zindan Nama’ and ‘Dast-e-Tah-e-Sang’.

Faiz was the first Asian poet who was awarded with the Lenin Peace Prize by the former Soviet Union in 1963. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize shortly before his death in 1984.