E.M. Forster Biography

Biography

Type: Writer (novels, short stories, essays)

Born: 1 January 1879

Died: 7 June 1970 (aged 91)

He had five novels published in his lifetime, achieving his greatest success with "A Passage to India" (1924) which takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj.

Forster's views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. He is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised for his attachment to mysticism. His other works include "Where Angels Fear to Tread" (1905), "The Longest Journey" (1907), "A Room with a View" (1908) and "Maurice" (1971), his posthumously published novel which tells of the coming of age of an explicitly gay male character.

Novels:

  • Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
  • The Longest Journey (1907)
  • A Room with a View (1908)
  • Howards End (1910)
  • A Passage to India (1924)
  • Maurice (written in 1913–14, published posthumously in 1971)
  • E.M. Forster Quotes

    A work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.

    It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.

    The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.

    How do I know what I think until I see what I say?

    Expansion. That is the idea the novelist must cling to. Not completion. Not rounding off, but opening out.

    The historian records, but the novelist creates.

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