Writer’s crusade: Frank Huzur

Frank Huzur, a Bihar-born writer, has advocated the need for more workshops in the state to promote literature.

Standing up for the promotion of literature in Bihar, Huzur said awareness should be spread through workshops.

The writer, who was in the state till Tuesday, told The Telegraph: “It is very important to save literature here. It is almost disappearing from the state. Bihar is a very fertile land and it has given birth to people like Phanishwar Nath Renu. It would really be injustice to see this land not giving birth to more such people. Literature workshops should be organised and interactions with writers (from Bihar), who have earned name and fame, should be held for youths.”

Urging the people to remember their culture, 36-year-old Huzur — who splits his time between London, Lahore, Mumbai and Lucknow — said it was high time to promote art and culture.

Originally from Nandan village in Buxar district’s Dumraon town, Huzur has to his credit a monthly news magazine during his Hindu College days (Utopia) and a book on Pakistan cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.

He has also written more than 100 poems and three plays. His first play Hitler in Love with Madonna (1998) was banned in India because of mention of L.K. Advani’s alleged connection with the Babri Masjid demolition. The September 1977-born writer had to convince both Imran and his ex-wife Jemima Khan hard for the biography Imran Versus Imran: The Untold Story (2011) that revealed many secrets of the iconic Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician.

Huzur said: “Imran had been a childhood fascination for me. He was a bit taken aback when I approached him for an interview. It was a time when his image was that of a playboy and journalists used to question him on cricket or his nightlife, which he did not like. I had to work hard to convince him about the book and he was quite surprised that someone from India was actually interested in his political journey.”

Huzur, who majored in economics at Hindu College, Delhi University, added: “It was even harder to make his ex-wife Jemima Khan ready for the book and it was Imran who persuaded her to share her personal life with me.”

The biography’s Urdu version has been one of the highest selling books in Lahore and has already sold more than 1 lakh copies.

The writer has brought out a memoir on pornographic stars, Soho, and has also penned The Socialist, a political biography on Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. It would be released in three languages after the general elections.

Turning his attention to state politics, Huzur said: “In his decade-long tenure, Nitish Kumar has presented himself as Mr Bihar, as if only he is the protagonist and rest of the players in the ring are antagonists. His self-obsession for a ‘larger-than-life’ portrayal in public life borders on paranoia and clearly betrays the image of a social democrat who was born out of the mass movement led by stalwarts such as Jayaprakash Narayan.”