Cynthia Thanda

Like most kids, Ozzil Gopolang who is a 20-year-old boy from Serowe grew up joyously playing football and street games.

However, as he advanced to higher grades, he switched to indoor sporting activities and began to assume a stoic and introverted character.

Although a proud Ngwato boy, Ozzil spent almost his entire life in the bright environment of Letlhakane. Currently, he resides in Gaborone where he is a full-time tertiary student in his third academic year.

He has always been fascinated by things and wanted to participate in new challenges all the time which planted a seed of interest when it comes to philosophy, science and always engaging his mind in critical thinking/retrospections.

Contrary to his nerdy attributes, he was generally not interested in English literature or novel reading sessions at school. He was selectively focused on subjects that he believed were contributing significantly to his dream career.

During the terrible year of 2020 in which the country issued a Covid-19 lockdown in order to curb the spread of the disease, Ozzil found solace in writing at a time when people were confined and non-productive. He started writing some short stories and drama posts.

A random person told him he had the potential to write a book but the young man didn’t know the power of his own pen until December 2020 when the abandoned thought of writing a book resurfaced in his mind.

Fortunately for Ozzil, he had a published author as a friend and she introduced him to a local publisher.

“The first thing the publisher said to me was just write anything that comes to your mind. Just write,” said Ozzil. That motivation gave him the will to take his computer and he started painting the white page with black-coloured words.

It was hard at the beginning but as he continued to write it became easier and he enjoyed it every step of the way. He saw it as an intellectual challenge.

“But after completing the manuscript, I was on my own. I did a lot of research on book publishing options. In May 2021, I published my debut book and I never stopped writing. The feeling of holding my own finished product in my hands instantly made writing become an addictive hobby.”

Ozzil writes fiction, specifically science fiction and erotica. For Sci-fi, he believes that the main reason it holds his interest in writing is because of his influential interests in astronomy, medicine, quantum physics, and conspiracy theory.

These are subjects that keep him awake at night and they are easy to be integrated into writing. As for erotica, sex on its own is an interesting topic yet controversial topic from the cultural setting that he grew up in.

Nevertheless, it can’t be ignored (it sells in the market). Ozzil likes fiction because it comes with grammatical and linguistic freedom because of its informality at times. Historic world events are his inspiration.

“I can use words that are questionable to formal writing like English curse words that some may rather find as vulgar language. But I always tell them that though it’s a Sci-fi, it also has to have realistic characters with real-life personalities.”

He has written two books. The first one is called ‘Against the Odds, 2021’ novella that is more like a memoir. As a youngster, he always has to have an underlying dream that he hopes to achieve one day, hence the book is basically motivational writing for any adolescent who aspires to be something in life.

His second book is ‘On The Verge Book 1’ which is a science fiction novel that will unfold in a trilogy form, so the readers can expect Book II of the series to air before the end of this year. On The Verge (2022) is a series that was inspired by the conspiracy behind Covid-19.

“As we know, there was a lot of finger-pointing and blame games among global nations that surrounded the virus. So, I turned that whole scenario into a piece of fiction.”

All his books are self-published because it’s way more affordable and compared to their counterpart, traditional publishing in terms of money. Even so, Ozzil finds that self-publishing also demands a lot of time and probably 10 times the amount of work in traditional publishing.

It’s always hard for a first-timer and Ozzil found himself in the clutches of selling and marketing his first book and trying to get attention from the market. Both his family and friends have been supportive of his work.

After his first published book, he moved up and down, making couriers or doing first-hand deliveries. Nonetheless, the response was amazing because he thought writing a tangible book at 19 is something that any person would applaud.

One of his readers, Lelo said: “I have read his recent book titled On the Verge. And for a sci-fi novel, it was just beyond my expectations and it was totally worth it. The creativity of the author was on another level and it had originality. Reading his work is a total win.”

In terms of the writing culture in Botswana, Ozzil thinks most of the local authors do it for passion rather than profit because authors are not getting enough recognition for their art as compared to other regiments of art like painting, music, and drama.

The reasons are that since English is not considered a native language in which most authors write, readers are always skeptical about the quality of the work that local authors give out.

In addition, most readers have their preferred group of authors that they read so giving a chance to a local writer might be something that they don’t want to try, considering that as customers they have to always look at their pockets before purchasing.

Questions such as “Is this author really good, can he/she write like my favourite author Nora Roberts”, makes it hard for local authors to get recognition. Because of this environment, most potential authors end up lagging on their way since they don’t get funding or recognition from local stakeholders.

Art requires income in order to be executed for public consumption and marketing is the main part of the process that Ozzil found can be costly. As a non-working scholar, he is forced to publish one book in a year because of a lack of funds which comes once in a while.

Another challenge is balancing school work with writing. Due to having to remain consistent at his academic side too, Ozzil ends up doing his writing on a single day of the weekend and it never connects perfectly.

Just like schoolwork, writing also requires concentration and focus so that you can chronologically layout your events. Since last year, he only gets to write when he goes for Trimester breaks which normally last for a month and that is when he enjoys writing.

Although he hasn’t had time to explore other authors and their works, Ozzil has come across a book by Danielle Steel that took his liking. However, at times while he is browsing through social media, he gets to see established local authors who have written tons of books and he admires their work ethics.

He hopes it’s something he can learn from them and find inspiration to continue writing.

On The Verge Trilogy can be found on Amazon KDP and Google Books as of March. Any future work will also be made available there. Ozzil looks forward to having a bookshelf of his own writings by 2030. The future is writing for him.