Alys and Faiz moved to Beirut in 1978. Their home in Lahore was closed for almost three years. On return, all seemed to be in order, except one cupboard which had been attacked by termites. Here too, the termites had spared all but one small wicker basket where alys had stored Faiz’s letters from jail. “All is gone,” she wept. Faiz consoled her, reminding her that the Urdu translations were published and so the letters survived in spirit. Very recently shifting through many papers of documents being shifted to FaizGhar, (the small Faiz Museum in Lahore) I came across a plastic bag containing some scraps of paper. On a closer look, they appeared to be some of the jail letters; in poor shape but still readable. I shared the fragile bundle with Dr. Asma Ibrahim, archaeologist, who assured me they could be salvaged. Under her careful supervision the process was carried out and twenty-five letters were conserved. The decision to publish them to coincide with the Faiz Centennial seemed to be a fitting tribute to Faiz. Kyla Pasha, who at age two, delighted “Nana Faiz” with her musical rendering of ‘Dasht-e-Tanhayee’, had the difficult task of deciphering, trans-cribing and occasionally reconstructing the letters from the Urdu Translation. To her and other friends, one is grateful for their painstaking efforts to bring the original letters to the reader. Salima Hashmi
Product details
- Publisher : Sang-e-Meel Publications; 1st edition (9 February 2011)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 280 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9693523903
- ISBN-13 : 978-9693523904
- Dimensions : 25 x 3.4 x 35 cm
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