The year 2011 will be celebrated worldwide as the centenary of the great poet of Southasia, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Paksir as tribute to Faiz will carry and post art on Faiz and his poetry. Over the year, Paksir will also be posting fresh material on his Facebook profile and Paksir.blogspot.com.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Pakistan’s unofficial poet laureate, was born almost exactly a hundred years ago, on 13 February 1911, in Sialkot, the hometown he shared with Pakistan’s national poet, ‘Allama’ Muhammad Iqbal. Faiz passed away in 1984, aged 73, in Lahore, the city he came to call home during the last years of his life.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s hundredth birth anniversary will be celebrated this year across Southasia and the globe. His poetry of resistance, with its vigorous challenge to authoritarianism, is as relevant today as when it flowed from his pen several decades ago. Revered for having stood up to exploitation, injustice and state coercion, Faiz’s legacy lives on as scores of writers and artists in Pakistan and India continue to struggle for an equitable, plural and tolerant society. Not surprisingly, Faiz was imprisoned and declared persona non grata by the Pakistani state, in the vain hope that incarceration would still his sharp verse. But that only sharpened it; through the ages, dissent has only been fuelled by censorship and clampdown, and the human spirit has triumphed.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Pakistan’s unofficial poet laureate, was born almost exactly a hundred years ago, on 13 February 1911, in Sialkot, the hometown he shared with Pakistan’s national poet, ‘Allama’ Muhammad Iqbal. Faiz passed away in 1984, aged 73, in Lahore, the city he came to call home during the last years of his life.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s hundredth birth anniversary will be celebrated this year across Southasia and the globe. His poetry of resistance, with its vigorous challenge to authoritarianism, is as relevant today as when it flowed from his pen several decades ago. Revered for having stood up to exploitation, injustice and state coercion, Faiz’s legacy lives on as scores of writers and artists in Pakistan and India continue to struggle for an equitable, plural and tolerant society. Not surprisingly, Faiz was imprisoned and declared persona non grata by the Pakistani state, in the vain hope that incarceration would still his sharp verse. But that only sharpened it; through the ages, dissent has only been fuelled by censorship and clampdown, and the human spirit has triumphed.
1 comment:
My Poem "In Remembrance of Faiz Ahmed Faiz Centenary", I wish to offer a tribute today on his 100 year's birthday.
Watch my dedicated video on YouTube.com
URL Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0CnFoD3fiE
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