Which novelist wrote "A Passage to India" (1924), exploring British colonialism?

Question

Accepted Answer

E.M. Forster. The correct answer is E.M. Forster. "A Passage to India" examines the tensions between British colonizers and Indian people through the central incident of Dr. Aziz's arrest on a false charge of assault. The novel explores the impossibility of genuine friendship across the colonial divide and the failure of liberal humanism to bridge cultural differences. The famous final line questions whether English and Indian can "be friends."

Graham Greene wrote novels with colonial settings ("The Heart of the Matter," "The Quiet American") but not "A Passage to India." Evelyn Waugh wrote social satires like "Brideshead Revisited" and "A Handful of Dust." Aldous Huxley wrote "Brave New World" and philosophical fiction.

Forster is important for the CLEP exam as one of the most significant early 20th-century novelists. Students should know "A Passage to India," "Howards End" (with its epigraph "Only connect"), and "A Room with a View." His combination of social comedy, moral seriousness, and symbolic depth, along with his exploration of class, culture, and human connection, makes him a central figure in the transition from Victorian to modern fiction.

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