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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 ReviewWhen 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.

A Passage to India (1924) is a novel by English author E.M. Forster. Written during the rise of the Indian independence movement against the British Raj, A Passage to India is considered one of the greatest novels of twentieth century English literature. The novel has also been an important work for postcolonial theorists and literary critics for its inherent Orientalism and treatment of race, gender, and imperialism. The novel begins with the arrival of a young British teacher named Adela Quested and her friend Mrs. Moore in India. When Adela visits a mosque, she is approached by Dr. Aziz, a young Muslim physician, who accosts her before noticing her respect and understanding of local customs. At a party arranged by a local tax collector, who has invited a group of Indians out of curiosity, Fielding, a college principal, invites Dr. Aziz to a tea party with Adela and Mrs. Moore. There, they make plans to visit the Marabar caves, but are interrupted by Ronny Heaslop, who is to be engaged to Adela. When the day of the journey arrives, only Adela and Mrs. Moore are able to make the trip, and Dr. Aziz accompanies them alone. At the caves, Adela is frightened by a strange echo and stumbles before convincing herself that Dr. Aziz has assaulted her. The ensuing trial divides the fictional city of Chandrapore along racial lines, exposing the prejudices and tensions that dominate life during the British Raj. A Passage to India explores themes of romance, friendship, race, and custom while critiquing the British conquest of India and illuminating the rise of the Indian independence movement. This edition of E.M. Forster's A Passage to India is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

A Passage to India'is 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 and the title is derived from Walt Whitman's 1870 poem'Passage to India'in Leaves of Grass.'A Passage to India'explores the common racial tensions and prejudices between Indians and the British who ruled India. One of the greatest novels every written.

This award-winning novel about a conflict between a British woman and an Indian man amid the stirrings of rebellion against empire is “a revelation” (The New York Times). One of Time magazine's 100 best English language novels published since 1923,one of the Modern Library's 100 great works of twentieth-century English literature, and thewinner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize “By the time the great Edwardian novelist, in this last and best of his novels published in his lifetime, addressed himself to the British presence in India, his moral sense was more fully equipped than ever. Mindful of the imponderables of human conduct, alert to all the reciprocal misjudgments and the wearying false appraisals we make as a matter of course, he looked at empire and saw its weak foundations. Adela Quested is a British visitor to the Raj who is anxious to know ‘the real India.'On a visit to the Malabar caves an assault of some kind does or does not happen to her, perhaps at the hands of Dr. Aziz, the solicitous Indian Muslim who has arranged the trip. Has she imagined things? Is he not what he seems? In his other great novel, Howards End, Forster directed us to ‘only connect.'What he demonstrates here, in a story of the greatest and saddest subtleties—and comic subtleties, too—is how nearly impossible that is to do.” —Time

E.M. Forster's A Passage to India concerns the relations between the English and the native population of India during the colonial period in which Britain ruled India. The novel takes place primarily in Chandrapore, a city along the Ganges River notable only for the nearby Marabar caves.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, the peak of the British colonial era, a visiting English schoolteacher and her traveling companion express a desire to see a more authentic side of India. One of their new friends, a young Muslim doctor, arranges a trip to a natural wonder, the Marabar Caves—a disastrous excursion that concludes with the schoolteacher accusing the doctor of attempting to rape her. His arrest and trial divide an already troubled Indian community, bringing its racial and sexual tensions to a boil. Widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, A Passage to India reflects the country's rising nationalism. E. M. Forster's 1924 tale offers a stirring condemnation of the abuses of British colonialism. Written at the height of Forster's career, the book recaptures a heated political atmosphere and offers a foreigner's view of India as a place of mystery and exotic beauty, inhabited by a people unknowable to outsiders.

E. M. Forster's 1924 masterpiece, A Passage to India, is a novel that tackles the thorny notions of preconceptions and misconceptions through characters'desire to overcome the barrier that divides East and West in colonial India. Here we see the limits of liberal tolerance, good intentions, and good will as we try to sort through the common problems that exist between two very different cultures. But Forster's India is a country where the English and Indians stare at each other across a cultural divide and a history of imbalanced power relations, mutual suspicion, and ill will. A fresh reader must wonder whether connection is possible at all.A Passage to India begins simply enough: with people genuinely desiring to connect and to overcome the stereotypes and biases that have divided the two cultures. Mrs. Moore accompanies her future daughter-in-law, Adela Quested, to India where both are to meet Mrs. Moore's son Ronny, the City Magistrate. From the outset, Adela makes it clear that she wishes to see the “real India” and Mrs. Moore soon befriends and Indian doctor named Aziz. Cyril Fielding, an Englishman and the principal of a local government college, soon becomes acquainted with everyone and it is his tenuous friendship with the Indian Dr. Aziz that really constitutes the backbone of this novel.While it is true that the primary characters take great pains to accept and embrace difference, their misunderstanding, fear and ignorance made that connection far more difficult than they expected. Getting to know the “real” India proves to be a daunting and challenging task. The bulk of this perhaps falls to Dr. Aziz, who soon learns that the indignities of life under British rule and the insults--unintentional and intentional--of his English acquaintances make him suspect that although genuine friendship may be desired, the two cultures are not yet ready.

Britain's three-hundred-year relationship with the Indian subcontinent produced much fiction of interest but only one indisputable masterpiece: E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, published in 1924, at the height of the Indian independence movement. Centering on an ambiguous incident between a young Englishwoman of uncertain stability and an Indian doctor eager to know his conquerors better, Forster's book explores, with unexampled profundity, both the historical chasm between races and the eternal one between individuals struggling to ease their isolation and make sense of their humanity.