Faiz Ahmad Faiz

1911 - 1984, Sialkot, Punjab, British India (now Pakistan)

Faiz Ahmad Faiz was a Pakistani poet, and author in Urdu and Punjabi languages. He was one of the most celebrated writers of the Urdu language, having been nominated four times for the Nobel Prize for literature. Faiz was a member of the Anjuman Tarraqi Pasand Mussanafin-e-Hind (All India Progressive Writers' Movement) and an avowed Marxist. Listed four times for the Nobel Prize for literature, he received the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union in 1962. Despite being repeatedly accused of atheism by the political and military establishment, Faiz's poetry suggested his complicated relationship with religion in general and Islam in particular. He was, in fact, greatly inspired by both secular poetry and South Asia's Sufi traditions. His popular ghazal "Hum Dekhenge" is an example of how he fused these traditions to create a more syncretic and universal poetic voice. The poem was set to music and sung by Iqbal Bano and was used as an anthem in the 1986 Movement for the Restoration of Democracy against Zia ul Haq's military dictatorship in Pakistan.