His selection, consisting of complete letters, also includes much more literary material. There is much in Rahbai^s book that should interest students of Persian and Urdu literatures which was not included by Russell and Islam. In other words, the two books fairly complement each other. They should both be read to get a full portrait of Ghalib, the man and the poet. In conclusion I would have liked to congratulate the SUNY Press for making these translations finally available but the high price and the poor look of the book don't allow me to do so. They could have done better with Professor Rahbar's labor of love. [C.M.N.] Wall Alam Shaheen, Anwar Nasim and Izhar Mirza (Eds.), Across Continents: A Review of Urdu Language and Literature in Canada. Ottawa: National Federation of Pakistani Canadians, 1988. 112 p. $5.00. (Available from: Urdu Canada, P.O.Box 2276, Station D, Ottawa, Out. Canada KIP 5W4.) A collection of five articles and two introductory notes, this book has much to offer to those who are interested in the progress of Urdu language and literature in Canada. In two separate articles, A.Q. Zia and W.A. Shaheen provide overviews that on the whole complement each other and provide a wealth of information about Urdu writers, literary associations and journals active in Canada. It is an impressive record when one notes the fact that the first recorded Urdu event in Canada was a mushairah held in Toronto in 1964. Two papers deal with instruction of Urdu in schools. The brief note by Mrs. Rashida Mirza, who teaches Urdu to children in a school near Toronto, does not give any sense of the excitement we all felt as we watched her demonstrate her teaching methods at a conference in 1986. Ralph Russell's "Urdu Teaching in British Schools" is a detailed discussion of a host of practical issues. As expected, it has much to offer to those involved in bi-lingual education and "heritage" or "ethnic" language instruction to the children of South Asian immigrants to North America. Of the remaining two articles, "Minority Writings in Canada: Some Critical Issues" by Enoch Padolsky provides a useful outline of topics—based as it is on a study of the writings by other minority groups in Canada—that can be used to generate a discussion of Urdu writing in Canada. It may be mentioned that Padolsky prefers the term minority rather than ethnic, because the former allows him to bring into discussion the issues of idealogy and hegemony. Muzaffar Iqbal's "Urdu in Canada: A Plea to the Urdu Speaking Population of Canada' has a long and rambling introduction that tells an idiosyncratic and often erroneous story of the development of Urdu language and literature in India and Pakistan since the llth century. It ends, however, with a plea to fellow Canadians to establish an institution where instruction in Urdu, translation from and into Urdu, and preparation of dictionaries and other reference books can take place, "lest we be remembered as the lost generation." This reviewer had attended the conference organized by the NFPC and was expected to contribute an essay to the present volume; much to his shame he failed to do so. [C.M.N.] Annual of Urdu Studies^ #7 ^33