Sunday, April 19, 2015

Ten top books about the British in India

Ferdinand Mount is the author of The Tears of the Rajas: Mutiny, Money and Marriage in India 1805-1905.

One of his top ten books about the British in India, as shared at the Guardian:
A Passage to India by EM Forster (1924)

I had misremembered Forster’s celebrated book as a rather prim and joyless novel against imperialism. When I came back to it years later, I found it luscious and funny. Of course the British are absurd and don’t understand India or the Indians, and Dr Aziz and Cyril Fielding cannot truly be friends until the Raj is over and done with. But when Forster toys with his characters, he toys so gently that they never cease to breathe.
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue