Bollywood actress, Huma Qureshi, added another feather to her cap! The Gangs of Wasseypur famed actress is now an author as well and recently debuted her book titled Zeba: An Accidental Superhero.
The Eik Thi Daayan actress unveiled her book during her session at the 12th edition of the Bangalore Literature Festival in the Karnataka capital. Qureshi debut work was launched on the first day of the Bangalore Literature Festival held at The Lalit Ashok Bengaluru. The White actress revealed that the plotline of her book came to her mind when she was shooting for the dystopian television series, Leila.
The fiction adventure with its own geo- and socio-political spin, spans across 27 years — from 1992 to 2019 — and is set in a fictitious county nestled in the Himalayas.
For the 37-year-old, “the scariest part of writing this book was that people would know how I think”.
“It is a story about a badly behaved woman, who ends up saving the world. This is a book for all misfits that fall outside societal norms,” Qureshi said.
“As a writer, you have nothing to hide behind. [Writing] the humour was difficult for me because there are things that are funny to me that may not be funny to others,” she shared.
Talking about the characters, Qureshi said, “Not just Zeba (the protagonist), but all the characters in the book are me. They have come from my imagination and impression of the world.”
Talking about the book, the Badlapur star said, “The book is a fantasy fiction novel set very specifically between 1992 and 2019. It talks about a make believe kingdom and an evil king and how this girl, Zeba, who has these superpowers, manages to defeat him.”
According to media outlets, the star started writing ‘Zeba: An Accidental Superhero’ during COVID-19 lockdown. “I started this book during Covid. I used to wake up every morning, take a shower, work out and then sit down to write. And I call this stream of consciousness writing – just sit down with a laptop and keep writing.”
“I would love to convert my book into a film someday. The original idea was to make a television series out of it. But that did not happen. And then I had this idea and I wrote a book, which I think is way cooler than writing a script. Inshallah, maybe one day it’ll become a film,” she excitedly shared.
“I’m just an artist and I think whatever opportunity I get to express my art, I would just take that up. So whether it’s acting or it’s writing or it’s producing, I think these are all just ways in which I can express my creativity,” she revealed.
“I think all acts of creation come from very selfish and a personal space. This book has come from a very personal space. I think it’s funny. It’s sassy. It’s cool. It’s present day. And I really had a lot of fun writing it,” she said.
Huma concluded, “I always believed that any piece of content, film or book, if it’s told genuinely, and the most specific you are with the story, the more universally it’ll touch different people. I think Luis Buñuel said this very famously that the more local you are, the more global you become.”
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On the acting front, Qureshi will next be seen in Pooja Meri Jaan.
