Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-1984) was one of the leading, if not the foremost, poet of the Indian subcontinent during the greater part of the last century. Listed four times for the Nobel Prize of Poetry, he was often compared to his friend Pablo Neruda, revolutionary poet and Nobel prize winner, of Chile. Of Faiz's multifaceted personality, which led him to become, amongst other things, an activist for human rights and liberties, a famous journalist and editor of liter. ary magazines (Urdu & others), trade unionist, and film songwriter, it is his poetry which will, no doubt, best survive the test of time.