Professor Braj Kachru (b. 1932) has pioneered, shaped and defined the scholarly field of world Englishes. He is the founder and co-editor of World Englishes, the associate editor of the Oxford Companion to the English Language and contributor to the Cambridge History of the English Language. His research on world Englishes, the Kashmiri language and literature, and theoretical and applied studies on language and society has resulted in more than 25 authored and edited volumes and more than 100 research papers, review articles, and reviews.

The first volume of these Collected Works brings together a number of Kachru's key papers from 1976 to 1990, covering Kachru's early work in the development of World Englishes as a concept and his exploration of non-native varieties of English.