At no time in history has there been such a massive movement across geographical, political, and cultural barriers as the one we are witnessing in our own time. The South Asian presence in Canada and the West is a result of this movement. It originates predominately from the countries of South Asia--India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka--and those of the Caribbean and East and South Africa.

The essays and articles in this volume comprise a concerted and many-sided look at the literature of this group. Several of them are also informative surveys of the important branches of this literature. Altogether they provide the contexts for appreciating it, and understanding it as an esthetic, social, and cultural phenomenon. At the same time they address several fundamental issues, regarding the relationship of this literature both to traditional (South Asian and Third World) and to mainstream (Canada and North America) languages, literatures, and themes. They probe the past, appraise the present, and throw a glance at the future.