A Passage to India
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
(1910s English girl confused by experience of the Raj)
Between Two Worlds
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust (Englishwoman contrasts modern India with her aunt"s 1920s experience)
James Clavell, Shogun (American becomes samurai in 17th-century Japan)
John Le Carre, The Perfect Spy ("autobiography" of ipper-echelon British spy - and double-agent, trying to discover where his loyalty lies)
Henry James, The Ambassadors (rich 1900s Americans take "culture" to Europe, find it more civilised than they expected)
Confused Emotions
R.K. Narayan, The Vendor of Sweets (devout Hindu in rural India dismayed by son"s "progressive" ways)
V.S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas (Indian Hindu in Jamaica caught between dependence on his wife"s all-engulfing family and his longing to lead his own life)
L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between (small boy in 1910s England carries love-messages, emotions he only dimly understands)
Paul Theroux, Fong and the Indians (Indian shopkeeper struggling to survive in rural, tribal Africa)
Willa Cather, My Antonía (daughter of 19th-century Bohemian immigrants growing up in rural Nebraska)
Imperialism, Good and Bad
Timothy Mo, An Insular Possession (blockbusting novel about English imperialism in Honk Kong)
James Blish, A Case of Conscience (should mineral-rich planet be exploited at expense of native inhabitants" life and culture?)
James Blish, A Case of Conscience (should mineral-rich planet be exploited at expense of native inhabitants" life and culture?)
Rudyard Kipling, Kim (adventures of Anglo-indian boy in heyday of Raj)
Twilight of Empire
Paul Scott, Staying On (plight of English in India after independence)
Peter Vansittart, Three Six Seven (Romanised Britons watching advance of barbarism after 4th century collapse of Roman power)
Morris West, The Ambassador (Us ambassador in Vietnam, appalled by his country"s action there)
Gerald Seymour, Field of Blood (underover SAS officer hunts IRA suspect in present-day Belfast)
P.H. Newby, The Picnic at Sakkara (English teacher in 1950s Egypt confused by collapse of British Empire)