Pharos and Pharillon

From the modern literary giant, author of Howard's End and A Passage to India, comes a portrait of ancient and modern Alexandria in thirteen short essays. Alexandria, Egypt, was at one point a trading hub and a cosmopolitan crossroads of the world--the axis of civilization. Yet, centuries later, its glory long faded. It was also the place where E. M. Forster, stationed there with the British Red Cross during WWI, fell in love with a young Egyptian man. Pharos and Pharillon is a collection of essays and articles Forster wrote about Alexandria, mostly written during that time and dedicated to that man, Mohammed el Adl. Organized in two parts, the book begins with Pharos, the great Lighthouse of Alexandria, and seven stories that paint a poetic picture of the ancient city and its history. The second half, Pharillon, consists of four stories set during the British occupied Alexandria of the twentieth century. It includes Forster's moving introduction of the Greek poet C. P. Cavafy to the English-speaking world. The division in the book is signaled by Cavafy's now famous poem, "The God Abandons Antony." First published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf in 1923, Pharos and Pharillon remains an enlightening portrait both of the city and the author.

About the Author :
E.M. Forster published his first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, in 1905, which was quickly followed in 1907 by The Longest Journey and then in 1908 by A Room with a View. Forster's major breakthrough came in 1910 with the book Howard's End. Forster was associated with the Bloomsbury Group, a collective of intellectuals and peers, including Virginia Woolf, Benjamin Britten, Roger Fry, and John Maynard Keynes. The 1924 publication of A Passage to India firmly cemented Forster in the literary firmament as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. It was the last novel Forster ever completed. Forster then turned his attention to teaching and criticism; his Clark Lectures, delivered at Cambridge in 1927, were gathered into a much-admired collection of essays on writing published as Aspects of the Novel. In 1946, Forster accepted a fellowship at Cambridge where he remained until his death in 1970. Forster's other writings include The Hill of Devi, an account of his experience as secretary in the Indian state of Dewas Senior; Pharos and Pharillon, a group of essays about Alexandria originally published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf; Maurice, a novel on homosexual love; and The Life to Come, a collection of short stories.