Published fourteen years after
Howards End, his previous novel,
A Passage to India(1924) was the last full-length fictional work E. M. Forster felt he could write. The title is taken from a poem of the same name by Walt Whitman.
Between his first visit to India in 1912 and his second in 1921, Forster’s novel gestated in his mind. This was a period of time that also included the First World War, the continuance of wartime repressive measures in India under the Rowlatt Acts, Gandhi’s return to India from South Africa and the start of his civil disobedience campaign, the First Government of India Act, an upsurge in Indian Nationalist feeling, British promises of Independence, and the massacre at Amritsar. A Passage to India is firmly rooted in this history even though Forster argued that
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Citation: Childs, Peter. "A Passage to India". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001; last revised 23 February 2018. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7077, accessed 23 November 2024.]
