Overview

• Edmund White died on June 4, 2025, at the age of 85, closing a literary career that began in the early 1970s.
• Born January 13, 1940, in Cincinnati, he debuted in 1973 and rose to acclaim with a semi-autobiographical tetralogy including A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, The Farewell Symphony and The Married Man.
• He chronicled gay culture and his own HIV-positive life after contracting the virus in 1985, offering a personal lens on the AIDS crisis.
• His biography of Jean Genet won the 1993 National Book Critics Circle Award and he received the PEN Literary Award for lifetime achievement in 2018.
• A final memoir, The Loves of My Life: An Erotic Memoir, is scheduled for publication in Italy on June 20.