The present Gujrati Reader which is designed to be used as a part of our Advanced Course is being presented by the Author Edition as a Floral Tribute (Pushpaguccha) containing 20 prose texts and 10 poetic compositions. The book covers a wide range of writing styles used in Gujarati novels, plays belles letters, autobiographies and newspapers so that both teachers and second language learners using them benefit from the lessons. The texts used here are not merely instances of ideal writing styles, they are also used to teach certain grammatical patterns and lexical coinages.

The language teaching materials produced by the Institute have so far been tried out through a series of 10 months Intensive training Programmers currently offered in 7 centres of the Institute at three levels; Basic, Intermediate and Advanced courses. The present Advanced Course Reader is suitable to be used not only for such language learners who are taught at Pune, but also for those who have had introduction to Gujarat language through a formal system, and yet have not had chance to go beyond the basics.

Sahitya Pushpaguccha is also expected to provide interesting reading materials to adult, new learners of Gujarati who have been taught by those engaged in literacy and post literacy campaign. For such mother tongue speakers of Gujarati, the rich selection of texts used here can be very handy.

The Gujarati Diaspora scattered over many countries, and especially in the African nations, would also find this course to be of relevance, should the community elders decided to teach their language to the younger generation by using a text like this which provides an interesting reading.

The suggestions, comments, criticism from all those who may use this teaching material will be most welcome. Specific comments on the aspect of production, including typographical and other errors that may have crept in or stylistic changes could be sent to Dr. K. S. Rajyashree who heads the Publication Unit. Suggestions on teaching and use of these materials could be mailed to Dr. Usha Nair, Principal of our Centre in the west at Pune.

I am very happy to see that the Advanced Gujarati Reader in its current incarnation has finally seen the light of the day for which Mrs. Madhu Sampat has to be given due credit.