A Passage to India

In the town of Chandrapore under British rule, Adela Quested arrives from England with Mrs Moore, the mother of the man she may marry, hoping to see 'the real India'. A warm-hearted Muslim doctor, Aziz, befriends them and arranges an outing to the famous Marabar Caves, but in one of the echoing caves something happens to Adela, or she believes it does, and Aziz is arrested for assaulting her. The trial divides the town between Indians and English, with the college principal Fielding caught in the middle.

E. M. Forster visited India twice and worked for a time as secretary to an Indian maharaja, and he published the novel in 1924. Its question, whether friendship between an Englishman and an Indian is possible under empire, made it one of the great novels of the twentieth century, and David Lean filmed it in 1984. Compare Forster's earlier Howards End.