Edmund White. Photo by Nick Barberio
Edmund White, professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts, emeritus, died at his home in Manhattan on June 3. He was 85.
White, who joined Princeton’s faculty in 1999 and transferred to emeritus status in 2018, was the author of more than 30 books—fiction, biography, nonfiction, memoir—nearly all of which center on themes of the gay experience.
“Edmund White was one of the most influential and groundbreaking figures in gay literature,” said Yiyun Li, professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts and director of the Program in Creative Writing. “He approached his subjects, both in his fiction and in his nonfiction, unapologetically, with utter candidness, joy and playfulness. His work has made space where there was none before him, and this space has allowed the younger generations of gay writers to exist and thrive.”
As a colleague and friend, “he had a wicked sense of humor — sharp-eyed but never mean-spirited,” she said. “He was exceedingly kind and generous, one of the most knowledgeable people. It was an endless joy to hear him talk about literature, history, music, art, or any subject. He has left a vacancy in many friends’ lives, an absence that will remain acute.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, who was director of the creative writing program when White was hired, called White “the iconic gay writer of the 20th and 21st centuries.”
“Like all icons he was an iconoclast, revered because of his very irreverence,” said Muldoon, the Howard G.B. Clark ’21 University Professor in the Humanities and professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts. “His presence was an absolute delight.”
“His students learned from him, of course, but he was exemplary to all of us for his wonderful combination of graciousness and grittiness, immense learning and legerdemain that he brought not only to his writing but his day-to-day life,” Muldoon said. “The one thing we couldn’t begin to replicate was his droll wit. That was all his own.”
Read White’s full obituary written by Jamie Saxon in Princeton University’s Office of Communications.
