Edmund White (1949-2025). The Patron Saint of Gay Literature

Edmund White (1940-2025) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA Studios, September 20, 2012 while on tour for the novel “Jack Holmes and His Friend.”

Edmund White, who died on June 3, 2025 at the age of 85, was often called the Grandfather of gay literature. Equally at home writing novels, biographies, plays, memoirs, essays and various hybrids, he was a pioneer in the LBGT world, one of the first gay novelists to achieve literary fame, the co[author in 1977 of The Joy of Gay Sex, along with a ground breaking trilogy of novels based on his own life, several memoirs, three well received biographies, and various collections of essays. Winner of the Lambda Literary Award and nominated several times, nominated for the Pulitzer and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for his biography of Jean Genet, winner of the National Book Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, Edmund White has also been called the Patron Saint of Gay Literature.

There were four Bookwaves interviews with Edmund White. In this third interview, recorded on February 20, 2012, he discusses his novel Jack Holmes and His Friend, along with a collection of essays, Sacred Monsters, and various other topics.