Edmund White

Edmund White, the pioneering gay author whose body of work earned him the title "the godfather of queer lit," died June 3, 2025, in New York City at the age of 85.?

White's early work, including a debut ("Forgetting Elena") that was praised by author Vladimir Nabokov, left much of its commentary on the gay experience veiled behind metaphor and theme, but his 1979 nonfiction work coauthored with Charles Silverstein, "The Joy of Gay Sex," changed all that. The following year he released "Nocturnes for the King of Naples," an openly gay-themed novel that drew upon his own experiences and marked a shift in his work. Going forward, White would draw heavily from his own life and the lives of other gay men for his work in both fiction and nonfiction. With a body of work spanning more than 30 books and hundreds of articles, he was called "the godfather of queer lit" by the Chicago Tribune for helping establish the modern LGBTQ+ literary scene. His long list of awards and nominations includes a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, a National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Foundation, and many others.

Publisher and friend Brian Alessandro mourned White on Facebook: "It was a gift to know him. His enormous talent and intelligence were matched by his uncommon hospitality and rare generosity of spirit. Though I am very saddened by his loss, I am grateful he existed and feel privileged to have known him. Such a legacy, such a corpus. Such a life. And every last bit of it on his own terms. … He is truly our patron saint. I can hear him already cracking a joke about my maudlin sentiments. Even his humor was mischievous but never not shot through with limitless compassion."

By Eric San Juan

(Image: Writer Pictures via AP Images)