Edmund White

The American novelist and memoirist known for his candid depictions of gay life, love and sex

- Patrick Kidd

Early in Edmund White's career as a novelist, at a party in New York, he met Truman Capote, who gave him a warning. "You'll probably write some good books," the author said. "But remember: it's a horrible life.

Perhaps, but as a gay man in Manhattan during the sexy 70s, before the advent of Aids, White found ways to make life tolerable. He once worked out that he'd had sex with 3,210 men between 1962 and 1982, though pointed out that was "only three a week". His sexual appetite was surpassed as a priority only by his work ethic.

White's promiscuity was the bedrock of his career as the godfather of gay American literature. His debut novel in 1973, Forgetting Elena, was described to his glee by Vladimir Nabokov, his hero, as "a marvellous book", and he was a founding member of a gay writers' circle in New York called The Violet Quill. In 1977, he co-authored The Joy of Gay Sex with his therapist Charles Silverstein. It was a comprehensive, witty and honest manual, giving advice on the etiquette of cottaging and how the hardest part of having an orgy is the organisation involved.

Greater success came in 1982 with A Boy's Own Story, the first of a semi-autobiographical trilogy, followed by The Beautiful Room is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997), that charted growing up in the repressed 1950s, the liberated exuberance of the 60s and 70s and the misery and fear caused by the Aids epidemic in the 80s.