The present work had its origin with a series of chapters on the literatures of Australia, New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South Africa, Britain, Canada, etc. Since there are many countries in the commonwealth it is not possible to include each country's literature. Furthermore, since there was very little or virtually no material available in printed form on the nascent literatures of the comparatively smaller commonwealth countries and we have taken only some of the prominent commonwealth countries in this book. The literature of a particular country has been given as a separate chapter. The important characteristics of the country's literature, prominent writers, their lives, their works and some general characteristics of their works have been given in this book. It is the writers that make the literature so it is very important to know about the writers as well and that's why the life and profile of many writers of various countries have been given in this encyclopaedia.