A Passage to India
A Passage to India is a 1924 novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th century English literature by the Modern Library and won the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. TIME magazine included the novel in its "All Time 100 Novels" list. The novel is based on Forster's experiences in India, deriving the title from Walt Whitman's 1870 poem "Passage to India" in Leaves of Grass.
A Passage to India emerged at a time where portrayals of India as a savage, disorganized land in need of domination were more popular in mainstream European literature than romanticized depictions. The story revolves around four characters: Dr. Aziz, his British friend Mr. Cyril Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Miss Adela Quested. During a trip to the fictitious Marabar Caves, Adela thinks she finds herself alone with Dr. Aziz in one of the caves, and subsequently panics and flees; it is assumed that Dr. Aziz has attempted to assault her. Aziz's trial, and its run-up and aftermath, bring to a boil the common racial tensions and prejudices between Indians and the British during the colonial era.
Reviews of A Passage to India when it was first published challenged specific details and attitudes included in the book that Forster drew from his own time in India. Early critics also expressed concern at the interracial camaraderie between Aziz and Fielding in the book. More recent critiques by postcolonial theorists and literary critics have reinvestigated the text as a work of Orientalist fiction contributing to a discourse on colonial relationships by a European. Today it is one of the seminal texts in the postcolonial Orientalist discourse, among other books like Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and Kim by Rudyard Kipling.
Excerpted from A Passage to India on Wikipedia.
A Passage to India
| Author | E. M. Forster |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Genre | Literary fiction, Political fiction |
| Copyright | Public domain in the United States. |
| Book cover | - |
| Ebooks | Project Gutenberg |
| Scans | Internet Archive |
| Audio | Librivox | Internet Archive Reader: Kirsten Wever 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 |
| Read online | A Passage to India |