Faiz Ahmed Faiz, prominent Urdu poet of 20th century, has been translated into different languages such as English, Russian and German etc. He is widely read through translation of his poetic works. His poems have been well rendered to English by translators, both native English and Indians or poets from subcontinent. Through my much long query to the translators of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, I came across numerous translators of his works. The list goes this like: Victor G. Kiernan, Imdad Hussain, Vikram Seth, Agha Shahid Ali, Daud Kamal, Khalid Hassan, Sarvat Rahman, Kushwant Sing, Noami Lazard and Shiv K. Kumar. Victor G.Kiernan was the first who translated Faiz into English. His translated word titled ‘Poems by Faiz,’ follows a distinct method; after giving original text in Urdu, he provides his own thoughtful translation and then translated them in literal language too. Agha Shahid Ali through his “The Rebel’s Silhouette’’ rendered Faiz in an elaborated, free and loose translation, so that he avoided word for word translation while some other translators were grappling with literal translation. Shiv K.Kumar’s translation merges between rhythmic identity and emotional identity of each…show more content… The very title given by translators varies each from other. Rat is the first word in the Urdu original, has been rendered as as ‘Last Night’ by Kiernan, Shiv Kumar , Sarvat Rahman and Vikram Seth, as ‘tonight’ by Imdad Hussain, and as ‘At night’ by Agha Shahid Ali. The word given by Agha Shahid Ali seems to be more accommodative for the source word ‘Rat’, which can consist both ‘last night’ of Kiernan and ‘tonight’ of Imdad Huassain.
Translating the word ‘dil’, which has been intended as spiritual self of the poet or the lover and also ‘dil’ has been given the I’ness. And it can be both spiritual and physical self. Some translators has merged ‘dil’ and ‘yaad’ in same words of recollection and reflection of the