One of the birthday gifts I received on July 11: a first edition, 1958 copy of the book Icina Me Laŋo Apar Wi Abic (Fifteen Lango Folk Tales). The tales were compiled by M.J. Wright, a district officer in colonial Uganda, and published by Longmans.
In the contents section, the list of stories are in leb Lango on the left-hand side of the page and the English translation is on the right-hand side. The folktales are structured in the same way.
I’m currently reading the fifth story “The Monster and the Lango Children” on page 22, a cautionary tale teaching children not to talk to strangers.
In the introduction, Wright credits clerks and interpreters in Lira for assistance in typing and translation. In the back of the book, Wright credits 15 Lango youth, women, and men (by name, clan, and village of origin) for writing down the folktales he gathered.
What are you reading right now? Which books do you recommend?
