The Riddle of Yayeri the Great by Michael Ogutti

Abstract

The story, Lwaki Yayeri Muzira? (Ogutti 2013), translated as Why is Yayeri Great? (Gulere 2014), takes the form of a riddle whose answers are left to the reader to reflect and articulate. It is one of the Uganda Community Libraries Association (UgCLA) Local Language Literacy project books sponsored by Comic Relief under the African Storybook Project/South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE). Ogutti is the promoter of Busia Community Library, which is a member of UgCLA and one of the 20 writers who gathered from among the Eastern Library Cluster of UgCLA to create stories that would change the local literacy environment in Eastern Uganda and Africa as a whole. The UgCLA project produced 40 stories and about half of these were translated into English, illustrated, approved, and published on the creative commons African Storybook website. This critical study seeks to analyse the efficacy of the story to transform its audience basing on the understanding that stories transform society. The story portrays an ideal village girl child who stands prominently above his brother by acting independently and responsibly against all odds. She is an enigma and that is why she is a heroine like her biblical namesake Jael.