A Passage to India: Introduction by P. N. Furbank (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series) (Hardcover)

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A Passage to India: Introduction by P. N. Furbank (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series) By E. M. Forster, P. N. Furbank (Introduction by) Cover Image
By E. M. Forster, P. N. Furbank (Introduction by)
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Staff Reviews


A Passage to India by E. M. Forster is set in the waning days of the British Raj. Questions of power and justice are explored. Adela heads to India accompanied by her future mother in law.  Her betrothed is Ronny Heaslop, the British Magistrate of Chandrapore.  Mrs. Moore is more open to the natives than her son Ronny who believes strongly in the entitlement and superiority of the Brits.  On a visit to a mosque she meets Dr. Aziz.  Cyril Fielding is another Brit who tries to befriend the natives; Mrs. Moore induces him to invite Dr. Aziz to tea. Trying to make a good impression, Dr. Aziz offers to take the ladies sightseeing to some local caves.  It will be a tragic invitation.  When one group holds the power, is justice possible?

 

— Deon Stonehouse

Description


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.

About the Author


Edward Morgan Forster was born in London in 1879, attended Tonbridge School as a day boy, and went on to King’s College, Cambridge, in 1897. With King’s he had a lifelong connection and was elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 1946. He declared that his life as a whole had not been dramatic, and he was unfailingly modest about his achievements. Interviewed by the BBC on his eightieth birthday, he said: ‘I have not written as much as I’d like to . . . I write for two reasons: partly to make money and partly to win the respect of people whom I respect . . . I had better add that I am quite sure I am not a great novelist.’ Eminent critics and the general public have judged otherwise and in his obituary The Times called him ‘one of the most esteemed English novelists of his time’.He wrote six novels, four of which appeared before the First World War, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), and Howard’s End (1910). An interval of fourteen years elapsed before he published A Passage to India. It won both the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Maurice, his novel on a homosexual theme, finished in 1914, was published posthumously in 1971. He also published two volumes of short stories; two collections of essays; a critical work, Aspects of the Novel; The Hill of Devi, a fascinating record of two visits Forster made to the Indian State of Dewas Senior; two biographies; two books about Alexandria (where he worked for the Red Cross in the First World War); and, with Eric Crozier, the libretto for Britten’s opera Billy Budd. He died in June 1970.

Praise For…


A Passage to India is one of the great books of the twentieth century and has had enormous influence. We need its message of tolerance and understanding now more than ever. Forster was years ahead of his time, and we ought to try to catch up with him.” –Margaret Drabble

“The crystal clear portraiture, the delicate conveying of nuances of thought and life, and the astonishing command of his medium show Forster at the height of his powers.” –The New York Times

“[Forster is] a supreme storyteller . . . The novel seems to me more completely ‘achieved’ than anything else he wrote.” –from the new Introduction by P. N. Furbank
Product Details
ISBN: 9780679405498
ISBN-10: 0679405496
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Publication Date: November 3rd, 1992
Pages: 344
Language: English
Series: Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series