Edward Morgan Forster was born on January 1, 1879. While best known for his novels A Passage to India and Howards End, Forster was a prolific critic, essayist, and broadcaster.
Forster’s father died when he was two, leaving a large sum of money that allowed Forster and his mother to live comfortably for the remainder of their lives. He was raised by his mother and paternal aunts, who showered the young Forster with affection. His early education, however, left him wanting; Forster felt uninspired and stifled in school. He matriculated  at King’s College, Cambridge where he experienced an intellectual awakening. Not only was he stimulated intellectually, he became  admired for his brilliant and quietly observant remarks. He also began to come to terms with his homosexuality and wrote several erotic stories.
On graduating, Forster traveled abroad to Italy with his mother and decided to formally pursue a writing career, which was made possible due to their fortunate financial position. He published four novels in the decade after graduation, including A Room with a View (1908) and Howard’s End (1910). Forster became known for his more colloquial writing style, his commentary on class differences, and an emphasis on connecting to nature and a more realized, true version of the self. 
With the outbreak of the first World War, Forster volunteered in Alexandria, Egypt and fell in love with a young man from India. He was inspired to travel abroad to India, a momentous trip which spurred his most well-known work, A Passage to India (1924). An exploration of the tension between East and West towards the end of British Raj, A Passage to India was an early commentary on British colonialism and an Indian identity outside of British rule.
Forster became a well-known humanist and intellectual figure in England and was a popular broadcaster throughout the 1930s. He ceased writing novels and focused more on publishing articles, criticism, and essays. While he privately donated to causes promoting gay liberation, he never came out publicly and often lamented his loneliness. Cruelly, homosexual acts were officially considered illegal in the United Kingdom until 1967 with the passing of the unfortunately named Sexual Offenses Act. Forster died at age 91 in 1970. Maurice, a novel he wrote around 1914 about a homosexual love affair between two men, was published in 1971 posthumously. Forster’s humanist beliefs and emphasis on finding the true self throughout his works continue to resonate with and be read by modern readers.