CIVIC OTI

You may have heard of the “Snow Leopard”. He is the Ghanaian who risked his HBP and limbs to pursue skiing in an artificial indoor slalom in Milton Keynes. He went on to compete and challenge in competitions and marked up remarkable success in the sport.

Amazingly, he may not be the most gifted individual even in his immediate family. His younger brother Civicis Oti arguably is. No, he doesn’t ski.

When I had the chance to proof-read a few volumes of his “Of Kings and Lords” novel, I did not know what to expect. I approached the project in a manner not dissimilar to the way that a staunch Jehovah’s 

Witness will view his first trip to a strip bar. I was disinterested and curious at the same time. (Is that even possible?)

And so it remained, until I read the first two pages. It was UNBELIEVEABLE. I had known Civic Oti as a dreadlocked, sharp-witted, MSc-holding Entrepreneur who loved to DJ at house parties, so reading a figment of his creative imagination, I was blown away. I can confidently say that what I read is at par with Lord of The Rings and such epics, if not better.

The language was consistently 16^th Century English or older. How he managed to channel his inner female to write as a “maiden” filling in her “pillow-book”, I will never know. Anyone who reads James Patterson’s books – with Alex Cross as the lead character - might notice that Mr Patterson does an excellent job writing as a Black widower in Washington DC because he’s actually whiter than chalk.  Oti steps it up when he convinces a reader (who doesn’t already know him) that he is indeed a maiden from some court or cottage somewhere, writing down stories someone else told her, as notes with a feather dipped in ink on her pillow-book.

The story itself is as engaging as it is entertaining - An arrogant king kills a seeress (a female soothsayer) for a negative prophecy, then he tries to defend his city against the will of the gods. Then a young gentleman is decapitated for rebelling against established order etc etc all within the first few pages. I was hooked. This was a page-turner. A screen-scroller in my case; as I was reading the download on my burnt-out, scuffed up HP laptop.

Both the writing style and the storyline were so good that to my own shame, I could not believe that happy-go-lucky Oti had written it. Then I checked out some more of his short stories and realized that this gentleman was beyond talented. It must be torture having an ingenious mind like Oti’s. A writing genius.

He is currently working on a short story for Help For Heroes.

**Some of Oti’s short stories are available for download on his website www.civicoticom**