Edmund White, the groundbreaking American writer who documented gay life, has died aged 85. In addition to authoring several pioneering novels, White was also a journalist, biographer, playwright, activist, teacher and memoirist.

White’s death was confirmed on Wednesday, June 4, by his agent Bill Clegg, who spoke to The Guardian. He died on Tuesday evening while waiting for an ambulance after experiencing stomach issues.

A major voice in modern queer literature, Edmund White left an indelible mark and his work inspired many authors who came after him, including Garth Greenwell, Édouard Louis, Ocean Vuong and more.

Born in Ohio in 1940, White lived his early years in Illinois. He was accepted to Harvard but decided to study at the University of Michigan so he could live close to his therapist, who was allegedly practising some form of conversion therapy.

Against the therapist’s wishes, he later moved to New York and then San Francisco, where he started working as a freelance writer. Throughout his remarkable career, he authored more than 30 books. His debut was Forgetting Elena, published in 1973, a novel that followed a young gay man who visits the queer haven of Fire Island.

In 1977, he published his groundbreaking book The Joy of Gay Sex, a pioneering sex manual White wrote with his psychotherapist Charles Silverstein. Speaking to The Guardian about the book years later, White said: “I think if I wrote it alone it would have been called The Tragedy of Gay Sex. [Silverstein] brought in the warm, cuddly part.”

There’s great sadness at The Booker Prizes HQ over the death of Edmund White, reader and writer extraordinaire, who judged the Booker Prize in 1989. His influence on other novelists will continue, as will – in the minds of those who knew him – his joyously wicked sense of humour. pic.twitter.com/L4oU8c2q8L

— The Booker Prizes (@TheBookerPrizes) June 4, 2025

Among his most notable works is A Boy’s Own Story (1982), a classic coming-of-age novel that went on to become a bestseller. The book was the first of a series, followed by The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997).

He also wrote books about novelist Marcel Proust and poet Arthur Rimbaud, as well as a biography of French playwright Jean Genet, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1994.

for a very brief time Edmund White was director of creative writing at Princeton. how, why this happened no one seemed to know. Edmund graciously resigned when it was suggested to him that the director had to be actually present for the first week of school in January & not in… pic.twitter.com/JwMG152Sa7

— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) June 4, 2025

Beyond his literary career, White was also present at the Stonewall Riots of 1969, an event that led to the birth of the modern gay liberation movement. Years later, White helped Larry Kramer set up the Gay Men’s Health Crisis at the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. White himself received an HIV diagnosis in 1985.

Edmund White is survived by his husband, writer Michael Carroll.

Edmund White, “the godfather of queer lit”, has died at age 85. With Truman Capote, photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe c. 1980 pic.twitter.com/m3vCQiUVDJ

— The Gay Aesthetic (@jmlx_john2) June 4, 2025