White, Edmund

White, Edmund (Edmund Valentine White 3d), 1940–, American writer, b. Cincinnati, grad. Univ. of Michigan (B.A., 1962). White is one of the best known—and probably the finest stylist—of the openly gay writers who came to public attention in the 1970s and 80s. His first novel, Forgetting Elena (1973), the tale of a young amnesiac's struggle to reassemble his life, was highly stylized and linguistically inventive, as was Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978). His later works concentrate on the struggles, pleasures, and political stances of members of contemporary America's middle-class male homosexual community. These themes are evident in a semiautobiographical trilogy of novels tracing the protagonist's realization of his sexuality and coming of age (A Boy's Own Story, 1982), his troubled young manhood and political awakening (The Beautiful Room Is Empty, 1988), and his middle age in an AIDS-ravaged city (The Farewell Symphony, 1997). Among White's other works are the novels The Married Man (2000) and Fanny (2003) and short stories, e.g., those in Skinned Alive (1995). His nonfiction includes The Joy of Gay Sex (coauthor, 1977), States of Desire: Travels in Gay America (1980), a monumental biography of Jean Genet (1993), and a study of Paris entitled The Flâneur (2001).

Bibliography

See his autobiography, My Lives (2006); biography by S. Barber (1999).

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White, Edmund (Valentine, III) (1940–  ) writer; born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied at the University of Michigan (B.A. 1962), before settling in New York City and becoming an editor (1962–73). He also taught at Johns Hopkins (1977–79) and Columbia University (1981–83), among other institutions. He is best known for his novels that deal explicitly with homosexual themes, such as A Boy's Own Story (1982), and for his nonfiction, notably States of Desire: Travels in Gay America (1980).