A Passage to India

The richest and most ambitious novel by one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, this masterpiece counts the human cost of British-occupied India, a society afflicted by imperialism and racism.

“A Passage to India is both a challenge and an indictment. It is also a revelation.”—The New York Times Book Review

When Adela Quested arrives in the city of Chandrapore in search of “the real India,” she quickly grows disillusioned with its prejudiced colonial community. Determined to escape the insular English enclave, she and her elderly companion, Mrs. Moore, seek the guidance of the charming and well-respected Dr. Aziz, a young Muslim physician. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar Caves with Aziz, and the doctor finds himself at the center of a scandal that rocks Chandrapore to its core. 

E. M. Forster’s beautifully rendered characters illuminate the tensions of British-occupied India and make A Passage to India a masterpiece not only of historical impact but of deep humanity.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) was born Edward Morgan Forster in London. Forster wrote six novels, four of which appeared before World War I: Where Angels Fear to Tread, The Longest Journey, A Room with a View, and Howard’s End. Forster published A Passage to India, his most acclaimed novel, and which confronts race, colonialism, and prejudice, in 1924. It won both the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Finished in 1914, his novel about queer love, Maurice, was published in posthumously in 1971. The Times of London called him “one of the most esteemed English novelists of his time.”