- Edmund White
's Program in Creative Writing. [ [http://www.princeton.edu/~visarts/cwr/faculty/ewhite.html The Program in Creative Writing, Princeton University ] ]
Life and work
Born in
Cincinnati ,Ohio , he largely grew up inChicago . White attended the prestigiousCranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan as a boy, then studied Chinese at theUniversity of Michigan . He later worked inNew York as a journalist. From 1983 to 1990 he lived inFrance .Incestuous feelings existed in White's family; his mother was attracted to him. White spoke of his own sexual attraction to his father in an interview: "I think with my father he was somebody who every eye in the family was focused on and he was a sort of a tyrant and nice-looking, the source of all power, money, happiness, and he was implacable and difficult. He was always spoken of in sexual terms, in the sense he left our mother for a much younger woman who was very sexy but had nothing else going for her. He was a famous womanizer. And he slept with my sister!" [ [http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Edmund_White_on_writing%2C_incest%2C_life_and_Larry_Kramer#On_incest_in_his_family Interview with Edmund White] , David Shankbone, "
Wikinews ", November 8, 2007.]White's best-known work is "
A Boy's Own Story ", the first volume of an autobiographical-fiction series that continued with "The Beautiful Room Is Empty " and "The Farewell Symphony ", describing stages in the life of a gay man from boyhood to middle age. Several characters in these latter two novels are recognizably based on well-known individuals from White's New York-centered literary and artistic milieu. White was a member ofThe Violet Quill , a gay writer's group that met briefly from1980 -1981 . The Violet Quill included other prolific gay writers likeAndrew Holleran andFelice Picano .An earlier novel "Nocturnes for the King of Naples" (1978) and a later novel "The Married Man" (2000) are also gay-themed and draw heavily on White's own life. In 2006 he published a nonfiction autobiography entitled "My Lives". It is unusual in that it is organized by theme, rather than chronologically. White's autobiographical works are frank and unapologetic about his promiscuity and his
HIV -positive status. In Paris, in 1984, he was closely involved in the foundation of the French HIV/AIDS NGOAIDES .White has been influential as a literary and cultural critic, particularly on gay issues. He has received many awards and distinctions; among these, he is a Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters , an Officier del'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres , and a Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences .Works
Fiction
* "
Forgetting Elena " (1973)
* "Nocturnes for the King of Naples " (1978)
* "A Boy's Own Story " (1982) ISBN 0-525-24128-0
* "Caracole" (1985)
* "The Beautiful Room Is Empty " (1988)
* "" (1995)
* "The Farewell Symphony " (1997)
* "The Married Man " (2000)
* "" (2003)
* "" (2007)
* "Hotel de Dream " (2007) [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/books/review/Gee-t.html?8bu&emc=bu Review from the NYT]Plays
* "Terre Haute" (2006)
Nonfiction
* "
The Joy of Gay Sex ", withCharles Silverstein (1977)
* "States of Desire " (1980)
* "" (1994)
* "" (2000)
* "Arts and Letters" (2004)Biography
* "" (1993)
* "Marcel Proust" (1998)Memoir
* "" (1995)
* "My Lives" (2005)Anthologies
* "", with
Adam Mars-Jones (1987)
* "" (1994)
* "The Art of the Story " (2000)
* "" (2001)Further reading
* Doten, Mark. [http://www.bookslut.com/features/2007_02_010621.php "Interview with Edmund White"] , "Bookslut", February 2007.
* Morton, Paul. (April 6, 2006) [http://www.econoculture.com/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=46 "Interview: Edmund White"] , "EconoCulture". Retrieved April 29, 2006.
* Teeman, Tim. (July 29, 2006) [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,23229-2284914,00.html|"Inside a mind set to explode"] , "The Times " (London). Retrieved January 9, 2007.
* White, Edmund. [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050613fa_fact "My Women. Learning how to love them"] , "The New Yorker ", June 13, 2005. Autobiographical article excerpted from "My Lives".References
External links
* [http://www.kwls.org/lit/kwls_blog/2008/03/podcastedmund_white_a_mans_own.cfm .mp3 of Edmund White's lecture "A Man's Own Story," delivered at the Key West Literary Seminar, January 2008]
* [http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2007/2080151.htm] Transcript of interview withRamona Koval onThe Book Show ,ABC Radio National 7 November 2007
* [http://www.edmundwhite.com/ Official website]
* [http://www.princeton.edu/~visarts/cwr/faculty/ewhite.html Official webpage at Princeton]
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