Love and Revolution: Faiz Ahmed Faiz: The Authorized Biography Paperback – March 1, 2016

If you like Faiz's poetry or want to learn more about him, his life and his work, this is a great entryway.

I purchased Dr. Ali M Hashmi's book "Faiz Ahmad Faiz: The Authorized Biography" for a research on Faiz's father, the late Sultan Muhammad Khan. However, the story of Urdu language's great poet, Faiz as written by one of his grandson's is an incredible story of revolution, exile, love and of course, poetry. I could not put the book down and finished it almost as if I were a fictional story of an amazing life story. Dr. Hashmi has painstakings put together an honest biography of a beloved, but politically controversial, figure in Pakistan's literary history. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the life and works of the late Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

I have read several essays and many books about work and life of Faiz A. Faiz. Love and Revolution, a complete biography, has all it one place. Most important aspect of the book is to present a great leader, philosopher, journalist, poet as a human with all his strengths and weaknesses. Even though, the book is concise it still give in-depth impression of many aspects of Faiz's life.The writer has not tried to make himself popular by overly expressing his relationship with Faiz sahib. He stays there as a bystander, who is providing the truthful information. He is well aware of his role, as a researcher and historian, not just a grandson.The book has one of the best English translations of Faiz's poetry and prose. The book was a real treat to read.

For lovers of Hindustani (Urdu) poetry and of Faiz, this is a beautiful book. Unique because of personal stories and anecdotes of authors life.

What a life lived. A romantic revolutionary. A visionary. Narrated by the one who grew up with the legend. Faiz talked about the common human and the love we all share. He spoke for the downtrodden. His message is universal.

Good condition book and delivered as promised

The present environment of unbridled rage, intolerance and vengeance all over the world, when man is taking up arms against man on grounds of being different, just different, from one another and anti-establishment voices being throttled to silence, the universal relevance and timelessness of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s words in Aaj bazaar meiN paa ba jolaaN chalo (Let us walk through the bazaar in shackles today) overwhelms me again and again. Of late, every time I listened to it I was drawn closer to the soul of the nazm and eventually the soul of the poet. No sooner than I started to look for the poet’s biography, in English, I chanced upon Dr. Ali Madeeh Hashmi’s biography of the poet. Though I did not have much choice, what caught my attention was the title the biographer has chosen – Love and Revolution. Perhaps no other title would have been more apt.Time favours the talented by making him suffer thereby making an artist out of him. Faiz’s talent whetted by the political turmoil – strengthening of the communist movement in the West followed by its gradual burgeoning in the subcontinent, rising of the freedom movement culminating in the eventual partition of India and creation of Pakistan – made him a passionate writer who began to write for a cause, for upholding an ideology that he fell in love with. It was as if the otherwise reticent and private person saved all his strength and gift of words to speak for and about the oppressed, for the art that he nurtured throughout his life. Situating the poet within the context of time and space, private as well as public, Dr. Hashmi has given us the backgrounds of some of the famous poems along with their English translations which have given the readers to appreciate the poems afresh, with a new perspective in certain cases. It is only after reading the biography one would realize how difficult it must have been for the author to present before the readers a poet, a lover, a father, a son, a brother, a friend, a student, a revolutionary and a philosopher in perfect balance. He has done it by creating a polyphonic narrative where he gives expression to the voices of the poet’s family members, friends, teachers and mentors. Thus each and every aspect of his life has gained equal prominence.I was a bit sceptical to have learnt that the biographer is the grandson of the poet. My recent experience of reading the biographies of some of the artists authored by their successors and disciples have not been academically gratifying. Those meant-to-be biographies ended up being vacuous hagiographies and opportunities for the biographers to establish their closeness with the subjects of the biographies, so much so that it sometimes felt as if they were trying to use the narrative space as a platform for their own publicity. Thankfully, Dr. Hashmi proved to be different from them. He has successfully carried out the most difficult task of placing himself beyond the confines of personal relations and presenting a great mind and life as objectively as possible.