ABSTRACT
Building on recent analyses of futurity, I argue that the Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's communist affiliation created new routes of movement, new threats of confinement, and at different moments, produced significantly different visions of the future. Part one unearths the ‘grammar of futurity’ in Faiz's prison verses (1951–54), which I compare with those of the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. Part two examines Faiz's travelogue of his 1973 visit to Cuba, which reveals his aspirations for Pakistan's future. Faiz's enduring political and cultural utility, I conclude, is bound up with the ambiguous nature of futurity offered in his writing.
