Groundbreaking Chicago-bred gay writer/critic Edmund White—who authored The Joy of Gay Sex, among other works—has died at the age of 85, according to PinkNews, citing The Guardian.
White’s agent, Bill Clegg, confirmed that the novelist died June 3 while waiting for an ambulance; he was experiencing stomach issues. White is survived by his husband and partner of 30 years, the writer Michael Carroll.
White’s first novel, Forgetting Elena, was published in 1973; the book follows a young gay man who visits the gay haven of Fire Island. The Joy of Gay Sex—written with his psychotherapist Charles Silverstein—was published in 1977.
The author went on to help Larry Kramer organize the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (now known as GMHC), in the wake of the AIDS crisis in the ‘80s. White would be diagnosed with HIV in 1985.
Some of White’s other works include the memoir Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris (2014), The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997). He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his biography of the French novelist Jean Genet.
Talking with Windy City Times in 2007 (with this writer), White mentioned that, at that time, “hundreds of my friends had died [of AIDS]. Only three members of the Violet Quill [a group of seven LGBT writers that formed in the mid-’70s] are still alive today [White, Felice Picano and Andrew Holleran].” Picano passed away earlier in 2025, leaving Holleran, 81, as the remaining living member. During the talk, White also lamented everything from what he called hypocrisy in the LGBTQ+ community to the lack of acknowledgement of bisexuals.
In a 2017 review of Conversations with Edmund White, Windy City Times’ Owen Keehnen wrote, in part, that the book “will appeal to aficionados of gay literature and is an extremely inspiring tool for writers of all levels. The interviews come from myriad sources and each stands on its own but, collectively, these pieces compose a mosaic through which the reader can glimpse the life of a true artist and man of letters as well as the journey of the community that he deeply loves.”
White was also an educator, holding positions at universities such as Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Brown and Columbia’s School of the Arts.