US novelist Edmund White, chronicler of gay life, dead at 85: agent
Edmund White, the influential American novelist who chronicled gay life through his semi-autobiographical work, including dozens of books, several short stories and countless articles and essays, has died, his agent said Wednesday. He was 85.
"Ed passed last night at home in NYC (New York City) of natural causes," agent Bill Clegg told AFP, adding White is survived by his husband Michael Carroll and a sister.
The literary pioneer's books includes "Forgetting Elena," his celebrated debut novel from 1973, "A Boy's Own Story," his 1982 coming-of-age exploration of sexual identity, and multiple memoirs, notably the revelatory "The Loves of My Life" published this year.
From his earliest publications, homosexuality was at the heart of his writing -- from the 1950s, when being gay was considered a mental illness, to the sexual liberation after the Stonewall riots in 1969, which he witnessed firsthand.
Then came the AIDS years that decimated an entire generation. White himself would be affected directly -- he was diagnosed HIV positive in 1985 and lived with the condition for four decades.
Tributes to the award-winning writer began pouring in on social media, including from his longtime friend and fellow prolific American author Joyce Carol Oates.
"There has been no one like Edmund White!" Oates posted on X. "Astonishing stylistic versatility, boldly pioneering subject matter; darkly funny; a friend to so many over decades."
Fellow author and playwright Paul Rudnick said on X that White was a "gay icon" whose novels, memoirs and non-fiction "changed and enhanced American literature."
White was an avid traveler, spending years researching biographies of French authors Jean Genet and Marcel Proust.
In the 1970s he co-wrote "The Joy of Gay Sex," a how-to guide and resource on relationships, which was a queer counter to "The Joy of Sex," the hugely popular 1972 illustrated sex manual.
In the 2010s White suffered two strokes and a heart attack.
But he kept writing. In this year's "The Loves of My Life," he recalled all the men he had loved -- White numbered his sexual partners at some 3,000.
The New York Times described the book as "gaspingly graphic, jaunty and tender."
White himself acknowledged that literature was a powerful conduit for revealing the intimate sides of ourselves.
"The most important things in our intimate lives can't be discussed with strangers, except in books," as he once wrote.
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