Edmund White, PRH's Groundbreaking Author, Dies at 85

©Dawn Bottoms/The New York Times

Edmund White, a groundbreaking author who was a pioneer of gay literature, died at 85. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1940. His fiction included the autobiographical trilogy A BOY’S OWN STORY, THE BEAUTIFUL ROOM IS EMPTY, and THE FAREWELL SYMPHONY, as well as CARACOLE, FORGETTING ELENA, NOCTURNES FOR THE KING OF NAPLES, and SKINNED ALIVE, a collection of short stories.

He was also the author of a highly acclaimed biography of Jean Genet, a short study of Proust, a travel book about gay America—STATES OF DESIRE—and OUR PARIS. He was an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and taught at Princeton University. He lived in New York City.

Read his obituary in The New York Times here.

About Edmund White’s works:

OUR PARIS by Edmund White (Knopf)

Edmund White’s charming, funny, telling series of vignettes of the Paris neighborhood where he and his lover, French architect and illustrator Hubert Sorin, lived. In this ode to Pairs, the everyday becomes extraordinary with White’s observations accompanied by Sorin’s illustrations. With characters like Father Pierre Riches, the “kind and elegant” catholic priest whose hair had been stroked by Cavafy, to Billy Boy, the jewelry designer with 16,000 Barbies, there is delightful eccentricity to this collaboration. Written during Sorin’s decline to AIDS, Our Paris is a poignant look at the couple and the city they loved.

MARCEL PROUST by Edmund White (Penguin Lives)

If there is anyone worthy of producing an intimate biography of the enigmatic genius behind REMEMBERANCE OF THINGS PAST, it is Edmund White, himself an award- winning writer for whom Marcel Proust has long been an obsession. White introduces us not only to the recluse endlessly rewriting his one massive work through the night, but also the darling of Parisian salons, the grasper after honors, and the closeted homosexual-a subject this book is the first to explore openly. From the frothiest gossip to the deepest angst, here is a moving portrait to be treasured by anyone looking for an introduction to this literary icon.

A BOY’S OWN STORY by Edmund White (Penguin Books)

THE MARRIED MAN by Edmund White (Vintage)

THE FAREWELL SYMPHONY by Edmund White (Vintage)

Named for the work by Haydn in which the instrumentalists leave the stage one after another until only a single violin remains playing, this is the story of a man who has outlived most of his friends. Having reached the six-month anniversary of his lover’s death, he embarks on a journey of remembrance that will recount his struggle to become a writer and his discovery of what it means to be a gay man. His witty, conversational narrative transports us from the 1960s to the near present, from starkly erotic scenes in the back rooms of New York clubs to episodes of rarefied hilarity in the salons of Paris to moments of family truth in the American Midwest. Along the way, a breathtaking variety of personal connections–and near misses–slowly builds an awareness of the transformative power of genuine friendship, of love and loss, culminating in an indelible experience with a dying man. And as the flow of memory carries us across time, space and society, one man’s magnificently realized story grows to encompass an entire generation.

CARACOLE by Edmund White (Vintage)

THE BURNING LIBRARY by Edmund White (Vintage)

Along with his essays of gay experience and desire, this magisterial collection of White’s nonfiction writings includes dazzling subversive appreciations of cultural icons as diverse as Truman Capote and Cormac McCarthy, Robert Mapplethorpe and the singer formerly known as Prince.

FORGETTING ELENA by Edmund White (Vintage)

On the privileged island community where FORGETTING ELENA takes place, manners are everything. Or so it seems to White’s excruciatingly self-conscious young narrator who desperately wants to be accepted in this world where everything from one’s bathroom habits to the composition of “spontaneous” poetry is subject to rigid conventions.

GENET by Edmund White (Vintage)

Acclaimed novelist and essayist Edmund White illuminates Genet’s experiences in the worlds of crime, homosexuality, politics, and high culture, and gives a compelling analysis of Genet’s plays, novels, and essays.

MARCEL PROUST by Edmund White (Random House Audio)

Considered one of the greatest—and most influential—writers of the twentieth century, Marcel Proust was also one of its most fascinating figures. A strange, reclusive genius who often lay in bed for days at a time obsessively rewriting his masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past, Proust was at other times a tireless socialite, attending the grandest parties and dazzling guests with his vivacity and wit. But as a boy Proust was yearning and lonely, an ambitious grasper after honors, and a miserably closeted homosexual, an aspect of his life that this book explores frankly and perceptively.

Posted: June 9, 2025

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