Among the greatest novels of the twentieth century and the basis for director David Lean's Academy Award-winning film. A Passage to India (1924) is a novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. The story is set in pre-Independence India, when it was ruled by the British, and it questions whether a friendship between a British person and an Indian would have been possible in those prejudiced times. A Passage To India was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th century English literature by the Modern Library