Poetry of Protest

This edited volume brings together a selection of 22 papers that were originally delivered at a major International conference ¿ INTERNALISING FAIZ AHMED FAIZ IN TWENTY FIRST CENTURY¿ at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. The purpose of the conference was to observe renowned revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz¿s death anniversary with tributes to his selfless contribution to the Urdu literature. Faiz was born in Sialkot on February 13 1911. 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 died on 20 November 1984. Faiz combined socio-political messages, revolutionary ideas and romantic idealism with the sweetness of the Urdu language, thus creating an exhilarating oeuvre. He symbolized all that is humane, dignified, refined, brave, and challenging. His poetry reflects his intellectual resentment and resistance against an unjust and archaic social order, which he rejects on rational grounds as anti-human; yet his poetry has no bitterness.