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For readers coming to this literature with English as a second language, there are some special problems, I feel. I think it helps to know a little about the writers themselves, and their particular concerns or "angle of vision". This helps to provide some context and clues about what to look for.

Secondly, even sophisticated readers and speakers of English as a second or foreign language have some difficulty with idiomatic or colloquial English. Thomas Kral has done a good job of identifying much of this material and I have tried to follow in his footsteps and supplement his list of idiomatic words and phrases with others that I also feel need to be identified.

Finally, because we all come from different countries with different social and literary traditions, I have tried to provide some information on background cultural context to the stories and poems. Sometimes it helps to know the political or social context of a particular work; in other cases, it may help to know how the writer is adapting or reacting against traditional literary forms or techniques. Please don't think, however, that I am pretending to explain everything about these stories. Readers with a different "angle of vision" than mine will certainly have insights of their own on the value of these stories and what they may mean, and from which I am sure I could learn much.

And some of these works are excellent enough as works of art and human statements that they will prove intriguing and mysterious for a long time to come. We can only admire the people who have studied English with so much diligence that they are now ready for the challenges of modern American literature. To such people we owe whatever help we can give, because in your responses we will learn something about you, something about ourselves, and moreover, something important about just being people.