Edmund White, Gay Literature Pioneer, Dies Aged 85

Celebrated American author, playwright and memoirist, Edmund White, has died at his Manhattan home on June 3, aged 85.

Born in Cincinnati in 1940, White came out as a teenager and, after a brief stint at self-imposed conversion therapy, entered the world at a time where queerness was beginning to shape culture in a way it never had done so before. Notably, White lived through and documented some of the pivotal moments in Western queer history, and just so happened to be on a walk through Greenwich Village with his then-lover on the night of the Stonewall Riots in 1969.

With a career spanning more than 30 books, White unflinchingly chronicled decades of rapidly changing gay life, and refused to hold back the intimate details, delving into the specifics of gay sexuality in ways that would make readers squirm even in 2025.

White was the co-writer of The Joy of Gay Sex, published alongside his psychotherapist Charles Silverstein in 1977, which was as much a groundbreaking celebration of gay sex as it was a how-to guide.

In 1982, his semi-autobiographical novel A Boy’s Own Story was released, which has become a pillar of queer literature. Its sequels, 1988‘s The Beautiful Room Is Empty and 1997’s The Farewell Symphony continued his story into middle age.

He became a fierce advocate during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s, founding one of the earlier AIDS service organisations, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in 1982.

White himself was diagnosed with HIV in 1984.

“I wasn’t surprised, but I was very gloomy,” he told the Guardian in January. “I kind of pulled the covers over my head and thought: ‘Oh gee, I’ll be dead in a year or two’ … it turned out that I was a slow progressor.”

A major force of modern gay literature

His last book, The Loves of My Life, was published earlier this year, and joyfully recounts his many sexual escapades.

In the 1970s when he was living in New York, White wrote: “I thought it was quite normal to take a break from writing at two in the morning, saunter down to the piers, and have sex with 20 men in a truck. When I wrote that I’d had sex over the years with 3,000 men, one of my contemporaries asked pityingly: ‘Why so few?’”

White has become a major force of modern gay literature, with authors such as Garth Greenwell, Ocean Vuong, and Brandon Taylor attributing aspects of their work to his influence. He’s also had multiple LGBTQ+ writing prizes named in his honor.

He is survived by Michael Carroll, his husband and partner of almost 30 years. Speaking to the Guardian, Carroll said: “He was wise enough to be kind nearly always. He was generally beyond exasperation and was generous. I keep thinking of something to tell him before I remember.”