Raghupati Sahai Firaq was born at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. His father, Munshi Gorakh Prasad, was an advocate by profession, but a poet by taste and temperament. He wrote poetry under the pen-name of "Ibrat". Firaq thus grew up in an enlightened, literary environment which must have activated his innate artistic instincts. He was a distinguished student specially interested in Urdu, Persian, and English literature, in which subject he also obtained a Master's degree. He had a chequered career which induded a short period of government service as Deputy Collector, several years of political and patrioticwork in the Indian National Congress, which entailed for him one year of imprisonment, and, finally, a long career as a teacher of English at Allahabad University. Firaq married at the comparatively young age of 18, but it was an unhappy marriage, a constant cause of tension between husband and wife.

As a poet of the ghazal Firaq stands foremost among the modern writers. His poetry and personality were nurtured by several diverse influences. He was thoroughly familiar with the Urdu poetic tradition, and was specially impressed by the poetry of Mir and Momin. He was also influenced by English poetry, in particular by the poetry and poetics of the romantics. Further, he had imbibed within him the spirit of the ancient Hindu thought and culture, as reflected in Hindi and Sanskrit literatures. Consequently, Firaq's poetry has acquired a unique flavour. It is remarkable for its sensuousness, for its frank commitment to physical beauty, for its sensitivity to human sorrow, and for its exploration of the mysteries of the night- the starry skies, their shifting moods and hues, their silences, and their glimmer and gloom.

Firaq is sometimes accused of coarse sensuality in his treatment of love and women. True, he has departed from the convention of reticence and reserve generally observed by the Urdu poets in this context, but it goes to his credit that he does not normally allow his sensuousness to sink into prurience or vulgarity. He looks at the female form with the eye of an artist and a lover, and often interprets the beauty of woman in terms of the beauty of nature. Like the English romantic poets, Firaq seems to have found a bond of unity between man and nature, body and spirit, all of which were for him the manifestations of the same divine energy:

All things o the universe are lrnks of one chain,
The shaking of a flower will set a star ashiver.

Firaq has thed to bring Urdu poetic diction dose to the Indian soil by blending it with Hindi words and indigenous imagery. His ghazals breathe a native Indian flavour, and are suffused with a soft, subdued music. They are written in a variety of measures, both short and long. He has also written rubales and criticism in prose. In recognition of his services to the cause of language and literature Firaq was honoured with two prestigious awards-the Sahitya Akademy Award (1960) and the Jannpith Literary Award (1969).

 فراق گورکھپوری