Congratulations to Professor Sophie Ratcliffe who has been named the winner of this year's E. M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The 2026 Awards in Literature, which honour both established and emerging writers, were announced on 19 March. Each year, the members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters nominate writers for awards, and a rotating committee selects the winners. This year, the committee members were Henri Cole, Adam Gopnik, and Yiyun Li, and it was chaired by Mona Simpson.
The E. M. Forster Award is a $20,000 award given to a writer from the United Kingdom or Ireland toward a stay in the United States.
Professor Ratcliffe’s writing explores the intersections of literature, philosophy, history, creative criticism, and fiction. Her publications include The Lost Properties of Love (2019), published in the United States as Loss, A Love Story (2024), and On Sympathy (2008). She is currently writing a novel, and completing an academic book on children and libraries, supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship. Her edition of P. G. Wodehouse’s Letters was reissued by Penguin in 2025.
Alongside her academic work, Professor Ratcliffe is a regular reviewer for the national press.
Find out more on the Arts and Letters website
