Before Hussain Zaidi turned into a writer, publisher, producer, scriptwriter, and mentor to new talent, he was a journalist. Though he primarily covered crime, he was also an investigative journalist for over twenty years. Hussain Zaidi started his career with the Asian Age and the Indian Express before moving on to Mid Day and Mumbai Mirror as Editor (investigations), He worked as Senior Editor with Express, Resident Editor in the Asian Age, and bid adieu to journalism in 2016 after his swansong stint as city editor in Mirror.
Hussain’s imprint Blue Salt has tied up with India’s largest publishing house. Penguin Random House, as co-publisher. Under his imprint Blue Salt -Penguin India they have published 12 books so far.
Among the authors who have written for Blue Salt is actor Emraan Hashmi who wrote The Kiss of Life, documenting his son’s fight with cancer, former Police Commissioner of Delhi, Neeraj Kumar who has written a book called Dial D for Don and Khaki Files; Neeraj Pandey of Wednesday Fame who has written Ghalib Danger, IPS officer, Amit Lodha who has written Bihar Diaries, Vibha Singh, scriptwriter for Yash Chopra banners like Mardani wrote “Convenient Culprit,” a fictionalized account of the tale of a woman journalist framed by the police in the murder of another journalist; Assistant Editor, Jyoti Shelar from the Hindu who wrote the Bhais of Bengaluru and several other writers have debuted with Blue Salt. Hussain’s protégé, Bilal Siddiqui wrote Bard of Blood which is now a Netflix series produced by Shah Rukh Khan banner, Red Chillies Entertainment. Hussain was also roped in as a Creative Consultant for the series.
His first book Black Friday published by Penguin was made into a critically acclaimed film by director Anurag Kashyap. His documentation of the Mumbai mafia in books like Dongri to Dubai, Mafia Queens of Mumbai, My Name is Abu Salem and Byculla to Bangkok is considered one of the finest pieces of investigative journalism. His mastery over terrorism-related research is reflected in Black Friday, David Headley and I, and Mumbai Avengers. Mumbai Avengers was his first fiction that Zaidi experimented with, the film was adapted into Hindi film Phantom, starring Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif, directed by Kabir Khan.
International writers like Misha Glenny, who wrote McMafia have used his in-depth research and so as Vikram Chandra while writing Sacred Games. Adrian Levy, who wrote “The Meadows” on Kashmir terrorism and recently “The Siege “on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Zaidi was once kidnapped in Iraq.
Zaidi was also an Associate Producer for ‘Terror in Mumbai, a documentary film along with Dan Reed for HBO based on the November 26, 2008, Mumbai attacks. The movie was widely acclaimed and won a series of awards. Two of his books Dongri to Dubai and Class of 83 are under production for series on Amazon Prime Video and Netflix Original respectively.
Husain has last year launched a production company Golden Pen which has now partnered with several top Bollywood production houses to bring quality content to theatre and the digital realm of entertainment.
Recently, Golden Pen too has initiated an imprint with Westland, the publishing arm of Amazon, and will soon launch a series of crime novels before the end of this year.
