Dear Friends, Colleagues, Members of the International E. M. Forster Society,
The 1st of January is the day when we celebrate E. M. Forster’s birthday and look back upon the past year.
2025 was a good year for us, especially for those who took the time to meet in Nancy for a brief but very fruitful conference. If you follow our social media, you must have seen the pictures, if you do not, it is time to look us up on Facebook, Bluesky, and X! We are looking forward to the volume of proceedings!
It was a good year for Forsterian scholarship as several new works appeared and some more are in progress. Our Society celebrated its 15th anniversary in June, we have now 181 members.
It was also a very good year for Forster as numerous new translations of his works were published. The most recent of them is the first Ukrainian translation of a novel by Forster – A Room with a View was published in December 2025.
It means that Forster has already been translated into 43 languages! 2025 gave us 13 new translations (that I know of, probably there is more) and 2026 already starts with the first Polish translation (32nd in total) of Where Angels Fear to Tread.
2025 gave us a new musical A Room with a View, the work of Cody Gerszewski (you can take a look here: https://www.youtube.com/@cgersh2010 ) and we are looking forward to the new TV series A Passage to India written and directed by Richie Mehta for the BBC.
We are already thinking about 2027 and the centenary of Aspects of the Novel, hoping that some of our members will use the opportunity to organise yet another conference or propose an edited volume. The IEMFS will be more than happy to help you with promoting the event!
Finally, as we celebrate Forster’s birthday, there can be no birthday without a birthday present. Here it is, a present for Forster and all Forsterians – a bibliography of critical studies, translations, and adaptations, supplemented with links to all those resources which are available online. It is a Open Access free e-book fully financed by the University of Warsaw.
Please, download it, read it, share the link with all those who might be interested (if possible via your social media!), comment, review (if you publish a review, make sure to let us know!), quote, and, generally, enjoy!
All the best in 2026!
Krzysztof Fordoński