KARACHI: The 106th birth anniversary of renowned poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz is being celebrated today.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz was born 13th February in 1911 in Sialkot in an academic family that was well known in literary circles. Local poets and writers were often gathered in his home, who met to promote the literacy movement in his native province. His father Sultan Muhammad Khan was a barrister who worked for the British Government, and an autodidact. 

Faiz was an intellectual, revolutionary poet, and one of the most celebrated writers of Urdu language, having been nominated four times for the Nobel Prize for literature. Faiz also wrote poetry in Punjabi language. A notable member of the Progressive Writers' Movement (PWM), Faiz received the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union in 1962.

His work remains influential in Pakistan literature and arts. Faiz's literary work was posthumously publicly honoured when the Pakistan Government conferred upon him the nation's highest civil award, Nishan-e-Imtiaz, in 1990.

Literary organizations held functions in Karachi and Lahore to celebrate his birth day and paid tributes to him for his services to Urdu language.