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BreakingNews.ie
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- BreakingNews.ie
Groundbreaking gay author Edmund White dies at 85
Edmund White, the groundbreaking man of letters who documented and imagined the gay revolution through journalism, essays, plays and such novels as A Boy's Own Story and The Beautiful Room Is Empty, has died. He was 85. White's death was confirmed on Wednesday by his agent, Bill Clegg, who did not immediately provide additional details. Advertisement Along with Larry Kramer, Armistead Maupin and others, White was among a generation of gay writers who in the 1970s became bards for a community no longer afraid to declare its existence. He was present at the Stonewall raids of 1969, when arrests at a club in Greenwich Village led to the birth of the modern gay movement, and for decades was a participant and observer through the tragedy of Aids, the advance of gay rights and culture and the backlash of recent years. A resident of New York and Paris for much of his adult life, he was a novelist, journalist, biographer, playwright, activist, teacher and memoirist. Author Edmund White at his home in New York in 2019 (Mary Altaffer/AP) A Boy's Own Story was a bestseller and classic coming-of-age novel that demonstrated gay literature's commercial appeal. Advertisement He wrote a prizewinning biography of playwright Jean Genet and books on Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud. He was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University, where colleagues included Toni Morrison and his close friend, Joyce Carol Oates. He was an encyclopaedic reader who absorbed literature worldwide while returning yearly to such favourites as Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Henry Green's Nothing. 'Among gay writers of his generation, Edmund White has emerged as the most versatile man of letters,' cultural critic Morris Dickstein wrote in The New York Times in 1995. Advertisement 'A cosmopolitan writer with a deep sense of tradition, he has bridged the gap between gay subcultures and a broader literary audience.' In early 1982, just as the public was learning about Aids, White was among the founders of Gay Men's Health Crisis, which advocated Aids prevention and education. The author himself would learn that he was HIV-positive in 1985, and would remember friends afraid to be kissed by him, even on the cheek, and parents who did not want him to touch their babies. White survived, but watched countless peers and loved ones die. Advertisement Out of the seven gay men, including White, who formed the influential writing group the Violet Quill, four died of complications from Aids. As White wrote in his elegiac novel The Farewell Symphony, the story followed a shocking arc: 'Oppressed in the fifties, freed in the sixties, exalted in the seventies and wiped out in the eighties.' But in the 1990s he lived to see gay people granted the right to marry and serve in the military, to see gay-themed books taught in schools and to see gay writers so widely published that they no longer needed to write about gay lives. 'We're in this post-gay period where you can announce to everybody that you yourself are gay, and you can write books in which there are gay characters, but you don't need to write exclusively about that,' he said in a Salon interview in 2009. 'Your characters don't need to inhabit a ghetto any more than you do. A straight writer can write a gay novel and not worry about it, and a gay novelist can write about straight people.' Advertisement In 2019, White received a National Book Award medal for lifetime achievement, an honour previously given to Morrison and Philip Roth among others. 'To go from the most maligned to a highly lauded writer in a half-century is astonishing,' White said during his acceptance speech. White was born in Cincinnati in 1940, but age at seven moved with his mother to the Chicago area after his parents divorced. His father was a civil engineer, his mother a psychologist 'given to rages or fits of weeping'. Trapped in 'the closed, snivelling, resentful world of childhood,' at times suicidal, White was at the same time a 'fierce little autodidact' who sought escape through the stories of others, whether Thomas Mann's Death In Venice or a biography of the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. 'As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excite me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm my identity I was unhappily piecing together,' he wrote in the essay Out Of The Closet, On To The Bookshelf, published in 1991. Even as he secretly wrote a 'coming out' novel while a teenager, he insisted on seeing a therapist and begged to be sent to boarding school. Edmund White was one of the leading gay American authors (Mary Altaffer/AP) After graduating from the University of Michigan, where he majored in Chinese, he moved to New York in the early 1960s and worked for years as a writer for Time-Life Books and an editor for The Saturday Review. He would interview Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote among others, and, for some assignments, was joined by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Socially, he met William S Burroughs, Jasper Johns, Christopher Isherwood and John Ashbery. He remembered drinking espresso with an ambitious singer named Naomi Cohen, whom the world would soon know as 'Mama Cass' of the Mamas and Papas. He feuded with Kramer, Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag, an early supporter who withdrew a blurb for 'A Boy's Own Story' after he caricatured her in the novel Caracole. 'In all my years of therapy I never got to the bottom of my impulse toward treachery, especially toward people who'd helped me and befriended me,' he later wrote. Through much of the 1960s, he was writing novels that were rejected or never finished. Late at night, he would 'dress as a hippie, and head out for the bars'. A favourite stop was the Stonewall and he was in the neighbourhood on the night of June 28 1969, when police raided the Stonewall and 'all hell broke loose.' 'Up until that moment we had all thought homosexuality was a medical term,' wrote White, who soon joined the protests. 'Suddenly we saw that we could be a minority group — with rights, a culture, an agenda.' His works included Skinned Alive: Stories and the novel A Previous Life, in which he turns himself into a fictional character and imagines himself long forgotten after his death. In 2009, he published City Boy, a memoir of New York in the 1960s and 1970s in which he told of his friendships and rivalries and gave the real names of fictional characters from his earlier novels. 'From an early age I had the idea that writing was truth-telling,' he told The Guardian. 'It's on the record. Everybody can see it. Maybe it goes back to the sacred origins of literature – the holy book. 'There's nothing holy about it for me, but it should be serious and it should be totally transparent.'
The Independent
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Edmund White, a groundbreaking gay author, dies at 85
Edmund White, the groundbreaking man of letters who documented and imagined the gay revolution through journalism, essays, plays and such novels as "A Boy's Own Story" and "The Beautiful Room is Empty," has died. He was 85. White's death was confirmed Wednesday by his agent, Bill Clegg, who did not immediately provide additional details. Along with Larry Kramer, Armistead Maupin and others, White was among a generation of gay writers who in the 1970s became bards for a community no longer afraid to declare its existence. He was present at the Stonewall raids of 1969, when arrests at a club in Greenwich Village led to the birth of the modern gay movement, and for decades was a participant and observer through the tragedy of AIDS, the advance of gay rights and culture and the backlash of recent years. A resident of New York and Paris for much of his adult life, he was a novelist, journalist, biographer, playwright, activist, teacher and memoirist. "A Boy's Own Story" was a bestseller and classic coming-of-age novel that demonstrated gay literature's commercial appeal. He wrote a prizewinning biography of playwright Jean Genet and books on Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud. He was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University, where colleagues included Toni Morrison and his close friend, Joyce Carol Oates. He was an encyclopedic reader who absorbed literature worldwide while returning yearly to such favorites as Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' and Henry Green's 'Nothing.' "Among gay writers of his generation, Edmund White has emerged as the most versatile man of letters," cultural critic Morris Dickstein wrote in The New York Times in 1995. "A cosmopolitan writer with a deep sense of tradition, he has bridged the gap between gay subcultures and a broader literary audience." The age of AIDS, and beyond In early 1982, just as the public was learning about AIDS, White was among the founders of Gay Men's Health Crisis, which advocated AIDS prevention and education. The author himself would learn that he was HIV-positive in 1985, and would remember friends afraid to be kissed by him, even on the cheek, and parents who didn't want him to touch their babies. White survived, but watched countless peers and loved ones suffer agonizing deaths. Out of the seven gay men, including White, who formed the influential writing group the Violet Quill, four died of complications from AIDS. As White wrote in his elegiac novel "The Farewell Symphony," the story followed a shocking arc: "Oppressed in the fifties, freed in the sixties, exalted in the seventies and wiped out in the eighties." But in the 1990s and after he lived to see gay people granted the right to marry and serve in the military, to see gay-themed books taught in schools and to see gay writers so widely published that they no longer needed to write about gay lives. "We're in this post-gay period where you can announce to everybody that you yourself are gay, and you can write books in which there are gay characters, but you don't need to write exclusively about that," he said in a Salon interview in 2009. "Your characters don't need to inhabit a ghetto any more than you do. A straight writer can write a gay novel and not worry about it, and a gay novelist can write about straight people." In 2019, White received a National Book Award medal for lifetime achievement, an honor previously given to Morrison and Philip Roth among others. 'To go from the most maligned to a highly lauded writer in a half-century is astonishing,' White said during his acceptance speech. Childhood yearnings White was born in Cincinnati in 1940, but age at 7 moved with his mother to the Chicago area after his parents divorced. His father was a civil engineer "who reigned in silence over dinner as he studied his paper." His mother a psychologist "given to rages or fits of weeping." Trapped in "the closed, sniveling, resentful world of childhood," at times suicidal, White was at the same time a 'fierce little autodidact' who sought escape through the stories of others, whether Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" or a biography of the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. "As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excite me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm my identity I was unhappily piecing together," he wrote in the essay "Out of the Closet, On to the Bookshelf," published in 1991. As he wrote in "A Boy's Own Story," he knew as a child that he was attracted to boys, but for years was convinced he must change — out of a desire to please his father (whom he otherwise despised) and a wish to be "normal." Even as he secretly wrote a 'coming out' novel while a teenager, he insisted on seeing a therapist and begged to be sent to boarding school. One of the funniest and saddest episodes from "A Boy's Own Story" told of a brief crush he had on a teenage girl, ended by a polite and devastating note of rejection. 'For the next few months I grieved,' White writes. 'I would stay up all night crying and playing records and writing sonnets to Helen. What was I crying for?' He had a whirling, airborne imagination and New York and Paris had been in his dreams well before he lived in either place. After graduating from the University of Michigan, where he majored in Chinese, he moved to New York in the early 1960s and worked for years as a writer for Time-Life Books and an editor for The Saturday Review. He would interview Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote among others, and, for some assignments, was joined by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Socially, he met Burroughs, Jasper Johns, Christopher Isherwood and John Ashbery. He remembered drinking espresso with an ambitious singer named Naomi Cohen, whom the world would soon know as "Mama Cass" of the Mamas and Papas. He feuded with Kramer, Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag, an early supporter who withdrew a blurb for "A Boy's Own Story" after he caricatured her in the novel "Caracole." "In all my years of therapy I never got to the bottom of my impulse toward treachery, especially toward people who'd helped me and befriended me," he later wrote. Early struggles, changing times Through much of the 1960s, he was writing novels that were rejected or never finished. Late at night, he would "dress as a hippie, and head out for the bars." A favorite stop was the Stonewall, where he would down vodka tonics and try to find the nerve to ask a man he had crush on to dance. He was in the neighborhood on the night of June 28, 1969, when police raided the Stonewall and "all hell broke loose." "Up until that moment we had all thought homosexuality was a medical term," wrote White, who soon joined the protests. "Suddenly we saw that we could be a minority group — with rights, a culture, an agenda." Before the 1970s, few novels about openly gay characters existed beyond Vidal's 'The City and the Pillar' and James Baldwin's 'Giovanni's Room.' Classics such as William Burroughs' 'Naked Lunch' had 'rendered gay life as exotic, marginal, even monstrous,' according to White. But the world was changing, and publishing was catching up, releasing fiction by White, Kramer, Andrew Holleran and others. White's debut novel, the surreal and suggestive "Forgetting Elena," was published in 1973. He collaborated with Charles Silverstein on "The Joy of Gay Sex," a follow-up to the bestselling "The Joy of Sex" that was updated after the emergence of AIDS. In 1978, his first openly gay novel, "Nocturnes for the King of Naples," was released and he followed with the nonfiction "States of Desire," his attempt to show "the varieties of gay experience and also to suggest the enormous range of gay life to straight and gay people — to show that gays aren't just hairdressers, they're also petroleum engineers and ranchers and short-order cooks." With "A Boy's Own Story," published in 1982, he began an autobiographical trilogy that continued with "The Beautiful Room is Empty" and "The Farewell Symphony," some of the most sexually direct and explicit fiction to land on literary shelves. Heterosexuals, he wrote in "The Farewell Symphony," could "afford elusiveness." But gays, "easily spooked," could not "risk feigning rejection." His other works included "Skinned Alive: Stories" and the novel 'A Previous Life,' in which he turns himself into a fictional character and imagines himself long forgotten after his death. In 2009, he published "City Boy," a memoir of New York in the 1960s and '70s in which he told of his friendships and rivalries and gave the real names of fictional characters from his earlier novels. Other recent books included the novels "Jack Holmes & His Friend" and 'Our Young Man' and the memoir 'Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris.' "From an early age I had the idea that writing was truth-telling," he told The Guardian around the time 'Jack Holmes' was released. 'It's on the record. Everybody can see it. Maybe it goes back to the sacred origins of literature — the holy book. There's nothing holy about it for me, but it should be serious and it should be totally transparent.'
Time of India
24-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Students should imbibe adaptable skills to face challenges of changing dynamics
Prof Larry Kramer, director, LSE Prof Larry Kramer, director, LSE, during his recent India visit, lauded the thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in India focused on social impact and pointed to the need to steer the curriculum at LSE to prepare the students to adapt and respond to new information and technical changes Changing geopolitical dynamics, wars and other conflicts have now opened the demand for a new work culture. How would you describe it? At the London School of Economics (LSE), we are focusing on helping students develop adaptable skills for the changing world of work. Many of the technical skills workers have needed in the workplace will become less important, particularly as Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been integrated into everyday life. This will mean greater importance and focus on critical thinking, problem-solving, learning to learn, communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills: things that AI cannot replace. This recognition is steering our thinking about the curriculum at LSE. One of the most important things in education is preparing students to adapt and respond to new information and new developments. The UK, USA and other European countries are facing acute unemployment. How can depleting global employability be pulled up? by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Discover Affordable Medical Insurance Options for Seniors in the Philippines 2025 LocalPlan Search Now Undo As part of my recent visit, I met the Indian Finance Minister who outlined the country's ambitious goals of 8% and 50% participation in higher education. These are interrelated, as an educated population–whether through universities, vocational schools, or technical colleges–the economic growth will look up. Besides, we need to give the working population a broad base of skills that AI cannot cover. For example, knowing how to collaborate and communicate, learn and adapt to new situations creatively. Cultivating curiosity will likewise be important. Starting with this base, people will also need to reskill and upskill throughout their lives, as technology and the workplace rapidly changes. Lifelong learning– and the ability to learn–is thus important. It is important to embrace technology, rather than resist or minimise its impact. Indian students have held LSE in high esteem, and it has had a historical connection with India. What kind of students LSE would like to welcome? LSE's ties with India go back to 1919 when a partnership was developed to establish the Ratan Tata Department of Social Sciences (now the Department of Social Policy). Former LSE director Ralf Dahrendorf described the relationship between India and LSE as 'a story of soul mates'. We have students from all over the world, from many different backgrounds. There is no one type of LSE student, but our students do have some things in common: they are high-achieving, ambitious, and connected to the real world in wanting to make a difference. Indian students make up the third-largest national population at LSE, and we are eager to recruit more. Indian students are well-educated, ambitious, and open-minded. Part of the reason I visited India was to enhance the visibility of LSE to Indian students and to encourage more to consider applying. If you come to LSE, you get a first-rate education alongside opportunities to meet and work with high-calibre students from around the globe in one of the world's greatest cities. It is an unrivalled opportunity to learn and grow intellectually, emotionally, and socially. How is the alumni network in India supporting Indian society and participating in global growth? Since LSE has a long history of welcoming students from India to London, we are proud to have so many esteemed Indian alumni including BR Ambedkar, KR Narayanan and Mithan Tata. The LSE community in India is a network of changemakers on both a local and global scale, from grassroots initiatives up to the senior offices of government, business and society. Many are thought leaders, occupying influential roles in government bodies, think tanks, and international organisations, shaping local and global policy decisions. LSE also has a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in India focused on social impact. This has grown markedly in recent years through the support of LSE Generate, our home for entrepreneurship, which has fostered an extensive network of local alumni ambassadors, mentors, investors and advisors on the ground. Many of these startups place the need to address social issues at their core. There are now over 1,300 LSE alumni founders in India. For real-time updates, follow our AP SSC 10th Result 2025 Live Blog.
Bloomberg
09-04-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
US Universities Face ‘Outflow of Scholars,' LSE President Warns
President and Vice-chancellor of London School of Economics and Political Science Larry Kramer discusses the impact of President Trump's policies on US universities as the "effective dismantling" of American higher education - an effort to "crush some of the best universities in the world". He adds that the US is becoming "an increasingly unattractive place for anybody to go to be a student or a faculty member" and that the LSE is "already receiving tons of calls" from US faculty. He says amid the UK's higher education funding crisis, Britain is in a key position to benefit from the outflow of US students and staff. Kramer advocates for all sources, including student fees, to be looked at for additional funding. On free speech, Kramer says the LSE's commitment to free speech is explicit and clear and if there were any US pressure on the LSE, the university would resist it. He spoke to Bloomberg's Caroline Hepker and Stephen Caroll. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
LSE refuses cancellation of book launch defending ‘misunderstood' Hamas
A leading university has defended its decision to host the launch of a book that claims Hamas is 'misunderstood'. The London School of Economics (LSE) claimed it was defending 'free speech' by refusing to cancel the launch of Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters on Monday afternoon. It comes after the Israeli ambassador to the UK called for the event to be cancelled amid concerns it could 'provide a platform for Hamas propaganda'. Tzipi Hotovely wrote to Prof Larry Kramer, the vice-chancellor of LSE, asking him to cancel the launch. In her letter, Ms Hotovely wrote: 'I am deeply concerned that the event is providing a platform for Hamas propaganda – a terror organisation proscribed under United Kingdom law. I worry that by promoting such a book, which sympathises with and justifies the survival and existence of Hamas, will only serve to grow support for a brutal terror organisation among your students and beyond.' She added: 'The university should not be endorsing this event, let alone organising it through its Middle East Centre. 'Nor should the university allow this event to go ahead on its premises. Therefore, I encourage you to cancel the event.' The university's Middle East Centre, which is hosting the event on March 10, said the book explores Hamas's 'shift from social and religious activism to national political engagement'. It added that it 'aims to deepen understanding of a movement that is a key player in the current crisis'. The event will feature a talk by the book's author and academics researching the Middle East. An LSE spokesman said: 'Free speech and freedom of expression underpins everything we do at LSE. Students, staff and visitors are strongly encouraged to discuss and debate the most pressing issues around the world.' They added: 'We host an enormous number of events each year, covering a wide range of viewpoints and positions. 'We have clear policies in place to ensure the facilitation of debates in these events and enable all members of our community to refute ideas lawfully and to protect individual's rights to freedom of expression within the law. 'This is formalised in our code of practice on free speech and in our ethics code.' Stop the Hate, a Jewish-led direct action group, has asked supporters to write letters to the university to persuade them to cancel the event. It is also planning a protest on Monday at LSE's Middle East Centre. A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said: 'Particularly amid the backdrop of rising levels of anti-Semitism in the UK, including on British university campuses, the platforming of an event that is sympathetic to a proscribed terrorist organisation is especially worrying. 'Universities have a duty to protect their students from hate speech and incitement to violence, and that includes their Jewish students, too. The event should be cancelled. It should never have been allowed in the first place.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
