Edmund White

Edmund White is a highly respected literary fiction and nonfiction author, best known for his works that explore the homosexual life in the United States. Born in 1940, White grew up in Evanston, Illinois, the second of two children to a father who sold industrial equipment and a mother who was a child psychologist. After his parents' divorce when he was seven, White lived with his sister and mother before attending boarding school in Michigan. He later enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he graduated in 1962 with a degree in Chinese. Despite being offered the opportunity to continue his studies at Harvard, White chose to follow his male lover to New York City, where he became immersed in the city's burgeoning gay culture.

White's writing career began in earnest in 1973 with the publication of his first novel, "Forgetting Elena," a satirical work that explores the rituals and intricate manners of the homosexual lifestyle in New York's Fire Island. This novel, along with subsequent works, established White as one of the leading voices in the exploration of homosexual issues in the US. In 1978, White published "Nocturnes for the King of Naples," a novel that tells the story of an affair between two lovers following the death of one of them. The novel was published during a time when HIV/AIDS was becoming a major issue in the homosexual community, and White was deeply affected by the disease, which claimed the lives of many of his friends.

In response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, White co-founded the Gay Men's Health Crisis with Larry Kramer in 1981. During this period, White's friend Susan Sontag recommended him for a Guggenheim fellowship, which he received and used to complete a writing project. In 1985, White publicly disclosed that he was HIV positive, becoming one of the first public figures to do so.

White's notable works also include "A Boy's Own Story," "The Farewell Symphony," and "A Married Man," as well as a biography of Jean Genet and a study of Marcel Proust. He is also the author of "The Flâneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris" and a memoir titled "My Lives." Having lived in Paris for many years, White now resides in New York City and teaches at Princeton University. He was also a member of The Violet Quill, a gay writer's group that met briefly from 1980-81. White's works have become important in the analysis of the social and sociological history of the United States, as he chronicles the evolving attitudes towards homosexuality in America and the impact this has had on homosexual communities and on HIV/AIDS.