Originally published in 1991, this is a collection of papers presented at the Symposium on Literature in Asia and the Pacific Region: Perceiving Other Worlds (Singapore, November 1989) by writers, critics, and scholars from Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, North America and Britain. The literary issues covered in this book include the notions of "other" and "self"; identity formation in contexts with two or more cultures; the loss, recovery, and transformation of tradition; re-creations and their "authenticity"; re-writings of literary paradigms and history; "post-coloniality"; and empire and capitalism, among others. A central impetus is the concern with the significance and fullness of "I" when it is (partly also) the "Other". This reissue also features a new Afterword by co-editor Dr Thiru Kandiah, who attempts to search out further dimensions of the possible ontological, epistemological, ideological, political and other implications of these various matters from out of the specific concerns of a "Third World" context.