Among the greatest novels of the twentieth century, and the basis for director David Lean’s Academy Award-nominated film, A Passage to India turns on a tragic clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century, 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 both the historical chasm between peoples and the eternal one between individuals struggling to ease their isolation and make sense of their humanity.