Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Faiz Ahmed was born in Sialkot, Punjab on February 13, 1911. He obtained MA from Punjab University in 1934 and became a lecturer in English at M. A. O. College, Amritsar. Later on, he joined Indian army during the second world war and was promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel. He resigned from the Army in 1947 and returned to Lahore at partition. In 1959 he was appointed as Secretary, Pakistan Arts Council and worked in that capacity till 1962. He also edited Pakistan Times and worked abroad for various left-wing publications.

Faiz was charged with complicity in a failed coup attempt known as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case and was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in 1951. The jail term gave him a first-hand experience of the harsh realities of life, and provided him with the much-needed solitude to think and write poetry. Two of his greatest works Dast-e-Saba and Zindan-Nama were products of this period of imprisonment. Faiz was the first Asian poet to be awarded the Lenin Peace Prize, the Soviet Union's equivalent to the Nobel Prize in 1963. He used traditional meters and rhythms to compose poetry that was a blend of Romanticism and realism. Faiz died in Lahore in 1984.