E.M. Forster published his first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, in 1905, which was quickly followed in 1907 by The Longest Journey and then in 1908 by A Room with a View. Forster’s major breakthrough came in 1910 with the book Howard’s End. Forster was associated with the Bloomsbury Group, a collective of intellectuals and peers, including Virginia Woolf, Benjamin Britten, Roger Fry, and John Maynard Keynes. The 1924 publication of A Passage to India firmly cemented Forster in the literary firmament as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. It was the last novel Forster ever completed.Forster then turned his attention to teaching and criticism; his Clark Lectures, delivered at Cambridge in 1927, were gathered into a much-admired collection of essays on writing published as Aspects of the Novel. In 1946, Forster accepted a fellowship at Cambridge where he remained until his death in 1970.Forster’s other writings include The Hill of Devi, an account of his experience as secretary in the Indian state of Dewas Senior; Pharos and Pharillon, a group of essays about Alexandria originally published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf; Maurice, a novel on homosexual love; and The Life to Come, a collection of short stories.
Join a young E.M. Forster on his personal journey of discovering his beloved India for the first time. Through letters written home and personal recollections, Forster paints the picture of Dewas State, a strange, bewildering, and enchanting slice of pre-independence India.In this collection, Forster shares insight into the lives of Indian royalty, and at times humorous accounts of the stark contrasts between excess and poverty he encounters. From letters that set the scene for Forster’s lifelong friendship with the Maharaja, to an essay on the Maharaja himself and his experiences as the Maharaja’s personal secretary, The Hill of Devi is a fascinating chronicle of the author’s experience in the land he called "the oddest corner of the world outside Alice in Wonderland."The Hill of Devi is an essential companion to Forster’s masterwork, A Passage to India.
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.
Alexandria, Egypt: at one point a trading hub and a cosmopolitan crossroads of the world. It was also the place where, during World War I, E.M. Forster fell in love with a young Egyptian man. Pharos and Pharillon is a collection of essays and articles he wrote about Alexandria, mostly written during that time and dedicated to that man, Mohammed el Adl.Organized in two parts, the book opens with Pharos and seven stories that paint a poetic picture of the ancient city and its history. The second half, Pharillon, consists of four stories, followed by Forster’s moving introduction of the Greek poet C. P. Cavafy to the English-speaking world. The division in the book is signaled by Cavafy’s now famous poem, "The God Abandons Antony."The sketches were written for the local Egyptian press and were also published in The Nation and Athenaeum, a British political newspaper owned by Leonard Woolf, husband of writer Virginia Woolf. The Woolfs published Pharos and Pharillon in 1923, and with its poignant accounts of the events and history of one of the first global cities, it remains an enlightening portrait, and a useful guidebook, into modern times.
