Forster, E. M.
(1879–1970), British novelist and essayist. A prolific British writer of the twentieth century, Edward Morgan Forster was born in London on New Year's Eve in 1879 to Morgan and Alice Forster. His father died when Forster was near two years old, and his mother raised him. Educated at Tonbridge School and Kings College, Forster had been to Italy, Greece, Germany, the United States, Egypt, and India. He began his literary career with short stories, which he published in Independent Review, a literary journal that Forster along with Lowes Dickinson (1862–1932) started in 1903. Forster wrote his first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, in 1905 and the autobiographical work The Longest Journey two years afterwards. A Room with A View (1908), Howards End (1910), and A Passage to India (1924) brought him literary fame. Maurice, dealing with homosexuality, was published posthumously in 1971.
Forster's most famous novel, A Passage to India, was viewed as an indictment of British colonial rule in India and played an important part in molding Western perceptions of Britain's presence there. Published in 1924, A Passage to India is a discourse on the British Raj with a liberal-humanist touch, portraying crosscultural friendship. Forster has been accused by some critics for succumbing to "Orientalism," the term generally associated with the study of non-Western culture by scholars from the West and their motivations. Although Forster writes about the failure of British rule in India, he also shares certain myths concerning Indian culture and people, which were hallmarks of the "Orientalists" of the nineteenth century.
Further Reading
Furbank, P. N. (1978) E. M. Forster: A Life. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Tambling, Jeremy, ed. (1995) E. M. Forster. London: Macmillan.
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