By Nobuhle L. Ngema
Carly Junior Bogopa, a blue belt judoka born in Vosloorus, published his book called Omega and has since its initial publication in December 2024, been making a great deal of effort to get it read by as many young people as possible. The book’s storyline takes place in a dystopian future set against the backdrop of a systematic unveiling of a pathogenic man made virus called Omega Xylopia that alters people leaving them with changed eye colours and newly found supernatural powers. It take place in South Africa in the future, that remains in the book, as the last location unharmed by longstanding war that took place across the globe.
The book plays out in a zero sum dichotomous world made up of two classes that exist in the parallels between the two definitive places of Cannan and Avalon, where they fall in the category of two distinct classes of supernaturals: “the gentry”; the privileged highly esteemed, as well as “the vagaries”; the wanderers.
The book targeted at the young people between the age groups 13 and18, has a young protagonist named “ Carlson”, Carlson goes through a journey of coming of age, survival and asserting one’s power against an oppressive regime that favours the haves as compared to the have nots. To realise his dreams – which he learns during adaptation to rigorous tests – he is faced with in the uncertain environment of his contemporary dystopian world.
Speaking on the inspiration of his book, and the concept of fiction imitating reality, Bogopa said that his motivation was driven by a need to overcome class categorisation and their presumed limitations on creativity and its potential to lift one out of poor circumstances.
Adding that, the talent that comes from the township compared to that of the suburbs is also his biggest motivation to write this book.
