Edmund White Knihy

"From Edmund White, a bold and sweeping new novel that traces the extraordinary fates of twin sisters, one destined for Parisian nobility and the other for Catholic sainthood. Yvette and Yvonne Crawford are twin sisters, born on a humble patch of East Texas prairie but bound for far grander fates. Just as an untold fortune of oil lies beneath their daddy's land, both girls harbor their own secrets and dreams-ones that will carry them far from Texas and from each other. As the decades unfold, Yvonne will ascend the highest ranks of Parisian society as Yvette gives herself to a lifetime of worship and service in the streets of Jericó, Colombia. And yet, even as they remake themselves in their radically different lives, the twins find that the bonds of family and the past are unbreakable. Spanning the 1950s to the recent past, Edmund White's marvelous novel serves up an immensely pleasurable epic of two Texas women as their lives traverse varied worlds: the swaggering opulence of the Dallas nouveau riche, the airless pretention of the Paris gratin, and the strict piety of a Colombian convent. For nearly half a century, Edmund White's work has revitalized American literature, blithely breaking down boundaries of class and sexuality, and A Saint in Texas is one of his most joyous, gorgeously written, and piercing works to date."

This novel follows the life of a gorgeous Frenchman, Guy, as he goes from the industrial city of Clermont-Ferrand to the top of the modelling profession in New York City's fashion world, becoming the darling of Fire Island's gay community. Like Wilde's Dorian Grey, Guy never seems to age; at thirty-five he is still modelling, still enjoying lavish gifts from older men who believe he's twenty-three--though their attentions always come at a price. Ambivalently, Guy lets them believe, driven especially by the memory of growing up poor, until he finds he needs the lie to secure not only wealth, but love itself. Surveying the full spectrum of gay amorous life through the disco era and into the age of AIDS, Edmund White (who worked at Vogue for ten years) explores the power of physical beauty--to fascinate, to enslave, and to deceive--with sparkling wit and pathos

The letters of a seducer to the great love of his life, a sensual tour-de-force by “the paterfamilias of queer literature” (New York Times) “Can’t sleep tonight. Was lying in bed reading the biography of a great man whose genius deserted him . . . The genius who deserted me was you.” In a series of late-night letters, gorgeous, funny, filled with memory, sensuality, and regret, a seducer calls across the years to the great love of his youth: an older, revered expatriate known, in his adoptive city, as the King of Naples. As the narrator evokes their affair, in scenes of beauty and remorse, his memories range over the men who came after and before, especially the seductive father who still haunts his erotic imagination. First published in 1978, before the trilogy of frankly autobiographical novels that made him famous, Nocturnes for the King of Naples reveals Edmund White at his most poetic, playful, and evocative, a magician on the level of James Salter, James Merrill, or Vladimir Nabokov.

Ranging in their settings from Paris and London to New York, this book represents a collection of White's short stories about being gay, from first unrequited love to coping with AIDS.

Set against the backdrop of the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, this work premiered on August 5, 2006. It explores themes of creativity and performance, engaging audiences with its unique narrative and character dynamics. The setting plays a crucial role in enhancing the atmosphere, making it a significant piece in contemporary theater. The interplay between the characters invites reflection on the nature of art and its impact on both performers and spectators.

______________ 'I find it impossible to imagine anyone better read than White ... Wisdom and a certain kind of tenderness are to be found on every page' - Observer 'One of the great prose stylists of our time ... There are few paragraphs that pass by without an illuminating, wise or funny comment' - Tim Smith-Laing, Daily Telegraph 'A rallying cry for the pleasures of reading ... The best writers are energetic readers, constantly diving for buried treasure. Anyone who encounters this book is likely to emerge with something new and gleaming' - Financial Times ______________ Edmund White made his name as a writer, but he remembers his life through the books he read. For White, each momentous occasion came with books to match: Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, which opened up the seemingly closed world of homosexuality; the Ezra Pound poems adored by a lover he followed to New York; the biography of Stephen Crane that inspired one of White's novels. White's larger-than-life presence on the literary scene lends itself to fascinating, intimate insights into the lives of some of the world's best-loved cultural figures. Blending memoir and literary criticism, The Unpunished Vice is a sensitive, smart account of a life in literature.

States of Desire Revisited looks back from the twenty-first century at a pivotal moment in the late 1970s: Gay Liberation was a new and flourishing movement of creative culture, political activism, and sexual freedom, just before the 1980s devastation of AIDS. Edmund White traveled America, recording impressions of gay individuals and communities that remain perceptive and captivating today. He noted politicos in D.C. working the system, in-fighting radicals in New York and San Francisco, butch guys in Houston and self-loathing but courteous gentlemen in Memphis, the "Fifties in Deep Freeze" in Kansas City, progressive thinkers with conservative style in Minneapolis and Portland, wealth and beauty in Los Angeles, and, in Santa Fe, a desert retreat for older gays and lesbians since the 1920s. White frames those past travels with a brief, bracing review of gay America since the 1970s ("now we were all supposed to settle down with a partner in the suburbs and adopt a Korean daughter"), and a reflection on how Internet culture has diminished unique gay places and scenes but brought isolated individuals into a global GLBTQ community.

The celebrated author of The Flâneur traces his relocation to 1983 Paris in spite of his unfamiliarity with the language and culture, tracing how he established intimate, intellectual relationships with the city and new friends while advancing his literary career.

The final volume of Edmund White's autobiographical trilogy continues the exploration of identity, sexuality, and personal history. Building on the themes from his previous works, it delves deeper into the complexities of the author's experiences and relationships. This installment promises to provide a profound and intimate reflection on his life, enriching the narrative established in the earlier books and offering readers a compelling conclusion to his story.

A New York Times Notable Book of 2009An NPR Best Book of 2009In City Boy, White is amusing and raucous as ever but he also lets the mask slip... Some stories don't need to be embellished to glow. - New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice