Passage to E.M. Forster: Race, Homosexuality, and the 'Unmanageable Streams' of Empire

They lay entwined, Nordic warrior and subtle supple boy ... There they Jay caught, and did not know it, whi1e the ship carried them inexorably towards Bombay. E.M. Forster, 'The Other Boat' In one of his many essays on the East that date from the early 1920s, E.M. Forster turns his attention to a geographical location that, for decades to come, would exert extraordinary emotional and political pressures upon him. Writing at a time when Egyptian resentment against the British occupation was starting to die down, Forster focuses on the large brooding figure whose imperialist shadow loomed over Port Said. 'Salute to the Orient!' he exclaims, in tones that quickly deepen in their mockery.