Celebrating Obscurity: A Tribute To J. K. Rowling

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Celebrating Obscurity: A Tribute To J. K. Rowling

A single-parent rose from obscurity in 8 years to become today the greatest woman celebrity, the richest woman (even richer than Her Majesty, the Queen of England) in the U.K, all through the power of imagination expressed through the power of her fingers!! She held the world spell-bound (270 million copies of her books sold so far).

Publishers, Film-makers, Agents, musical artists, youngsters and parents are all feeding from her fingers.The stocks of publishing companies rose in obedeience to her graceful fingers. A treasure, dug out of the obscure cafes of Edinburg! A pen of destiny, buried under a series of personal misfortunes, wrote and waited for seven years, before discovery.

I am talking of the one, and only creator of the 'Harry' that smashed every available 'Potter's' vessels. I mean the one who broke the global box office records- Ms. J.K. Rowling, who conquered and arrested world attention in order to teach the the world the greatest lesson of all times i.e: 'THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH'. Fame sought her and refused to fade! Grace lifted her from shame and refused to be erased!! Stigma saw her, got unstuck, and took flight after her wedding in 2001!!!

Can a person be enthroned but refuse to reign? All hail 'Mummy Jessy', the sceptre of thy kingdom is the sceptre of HUMILITY, and unto thee shall all thy people bow! I have long ago, in my literary race, learnt to line-up with the Father of creativity- GOD ALMIGHTY, I line up with the creator of your resillient virtues!

What others, in her position, would rather relish and rollick in, is what our sister found great displeasure in. The harder she sought anonymity, the greater she gained celebrity status and fame. Hear out her 'heart-kicks': "one of my regrets would be that I will never again have the pleasure of sneeking into a cafe, any cafe I like, sitting down and diving into my world, and no one knowing what I am doing, and no one bothering about me, and being totally anonymous, that fantastic"

You don't sell 270 million copies of 5 books, interpreted into 62 languages, including Chinese, and not expect your craving for anonymity to be torn to shreds!

Talking of records; never in publishing history has the first print run of a book amassed up to 10.8 million copies. Never also, in publishing history has 9 million copies of a book (I mean, her latest and 6th serial) been sold on the first day of its release!

The movies from her first three books havs grossed in over $2.6 Billion Dollars. In fact this terrific author, having no other records to break, behaved true to type - begun like the skillful 'Potter' that she is, to smash her own 'pots' to pieces, for better vessel than she had ever created.

'Pottermania' has entered into the lexicon of the of the entertainment industry. The multi-million Dollar licensing deals for Harry Potter products testified to this. Films, stamps, cauldren, glasses, wands, caps, cotumes, musical albums... all give trademark endorsements of the terrific imagery conjured from the mind of this humble genius called J.K. Rowling.

To the skeptics who speculate the death of the Harry Potter brand in the next 3 to 4 years, I have this to say: half a century to come this classic would still occupy a prime place on bookshelves and bookstores. To imagine the death of her works is akin to speculating the death of CREATIVITY. God will spare her of their evil imagination.

Aderemi Ojikutu (Aderaskeey) is a Motivational Author and Youth Mentor. He is a minister of the Word of God. A political economist and political leader. He is President of the TREASURE WRITERS CLUB in Nigeria(http://treasurewriters.50megs.com). He is also the current President of the National Democratic Forum (N.D.F). He was National Mobilisation Officer of the National Association of Nigerian Students (N.A.N.S) for several years. A revolutionary of over two decades, he was also the political secretary of the defunct Nigerian Labour Party in 1991.

Celebrating Obscurity: A Tribute To J. K. Rowling

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