Edmund White

Has everyone always been in love with you? Of course they have, who am I kidding? What did they say about Helen of Troy? That her face launched a thousand ships? That's you, you're that beautiful. A thousand ships' New York City in the eighties, and at its decadent heart is Guy. The darling of Fire Island's gay community and one of New York's top male models, Guy is gliding his way to riches that are a world away from his modest provincial upbringing back home in France. Like some modern-day Dorian Gray he seems untouched by time: the decades pass, fashions change, yet his beauty remains as transcendent and captivating as ever. Such looks cannot help but bring him adoration. From sweet yet pathetic Fred to the wealthy and masochistic Baron, from the acerbic and cynical Pierre-Georges to Andre, fabricating Dali fakes and hurtling towards prison and the abyss, all are in some way fixated on him. In return for the devotion and expensive gifts they lavish on him, he plays with unswerving loyalty whatever role they project onto him: unattainable idol, passionate lover, malleable client. But just as the years are catching up on his smooth skin and perfect body, so his way of life is closing in on him and destroying the men he loves. Edmund White has in Our Young Man created some of the richest representations of gay male identity, from the disco era to the age of AIDs. What links them all is the allure and enchantment they find in beauty. Revelling in its magic, Our Young Man nonetheless slips beneath the seductive surface to examine its dangerous depths, exploring its power to fascinate, enslave and deceive. Mesmerising, blackly comic, and delicately crafted, this is an exquisite novel from a contemporary master.

Poet and prodigy Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) died young but his extraordinary poetry continues to influence and inspire - fans include Dylan, Jim Morrison, Patti Smith. His long poem Un Saison en Enferand his collection Illuminations are central to the modern canon. Having sworn off writing at the age of twenty-one, Rimbaud drifted around the world from scheme to scheme, ultimately dying from an infection contracted while gun-running in Africa. He was thirty-seven.Distinguished biographer, novelist, and memoirist Edmund White brilliantly explores the young poets relationships with his family and his teachers, as well as his notorious affair with the older and more established poet Paul Verlaine. He reveals the longing for a utopian life of the future and the sexual taboos that haunt Rimbauds works, offering incisive interpretations of the poems and his own artful translations to bring us closer to this great and mercurial poet.

Originally published in 1982 as the first of Edmund Whiteas trilogy of autobiographical novels, A Boyas Own Story became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. The bookas unnamed narrator, growing up during the 1950s, is beset by aloof parents, a cruel sister, and relentless mocking from his peers, compelling him to seek out works of art and literature as solaceaand to uncover new relationships in the struggle to embrace his own sexuality. Lyrical and poignant, with powerful evocations of shame and yearning, this is an American literary treasure.

From the legendary author Edmund White a stunning revelatory memoir of a lifetime of gay love and sex

At once hilarious, sexy and heartbreaking, Chaos is a new novella and collection of short stories from hugely acclaimed writer Edmund White.

E'la storia tormentata, ma al tempo stesso animata da episodi divertenti e sfrenati, di un amore omosessuale, quello tra il protagonista, l'autore stesso, e il suo amico francese Brice, destinato a morire di Aids nel 1994. Ma e anche la storia di una conquista, sua e degli omosessulai americani, che alterna la dolcezza triste dei ricordi e il rimpianto per la scomparsa dell'amico, a episodi importanti della sua giovinezza, che coincide con la presa di coscienza del movimento gay negli Stati Uniti, come la celebre sommossa dello Stonewall del Greenwich Village di New York.

In the 1970s Paris had fashion, London had the theatre, Berlin had a small painting scene, but New York had all these cultural attainments and more - a vibrant intellectual life. In a decade when New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy, when local headlines were dominated by stories of urban scandal, corruption and violence, the city flourished as never before as the centre of 'uncompromising high culture masquerading as slouching, grinning gee-whiz - Wallace Stevens in sneakers.' The representative figures of this New York were Susan Sontag, Jasper Johns, George Balanchine and more - fierce cultural arbiters, 'martyr's to art', living in a city that was still obsessed with the hierarchy of the arts and the idea of the Pure. From Isherwood to Mapplethorpe, Borges to Foucault, Brodkey to Burroughs, Edmund White knew them all, and writes about them in City Boy with love, affection, insight and often biting wit. It is a fascinating, personal journey through the vibrant and explosive New York of the 70's with wonderful sideshows in San Francisco and a Venice presided over by the radiant Peggy Guggenheim, and it bounces from literary infighting at the New Yorker to erotic...CONTINÚA

''Has everyone always been in love with you? Of course they have, who am I kidding? What did they say about Helen of Troy? That her face launched a thousand ships? That''s you, you''re that beautiful. A thousand ships''New York City in the eighties, and at its decadent heart is Guy. The darling of Fire Island''s gay community and one of New York''s top male models, Guy is gliding his way to riches that are a world away from his modest provincial upbringing back home in France. Like some modern-day Dorian Gray he seems untouched by time: the decades pass, fashions change, yet his beauty remains as transcendent and captivating as ever.Such looks cannot help but bring him adoration. From sweet yet pathetic Fred to the wealthy and masochistic Baron, from the acerbic and cynical Pierre-Georges to Andre, fabricating Dali fakes and hurtling towards prison and the abyss, all are in some way fixated on him. In return for the devotion and expensive gifts they lavish on him, he plays with unswerving loyalty whatever role they project onto him: unattainable idol, passionate lover, malleable client. But just as the years are catching up on his smooth skin and perfect body, so his way of life is closing in on him and destroying the men he loves.Edmund White has in Our Young Man created some of the richest representations of gay male identity, from the disco era to the age of AIDs. What links them all is the allure and enchantment they find in beauty. Revelling in its magic, Our Young Man nonetheless slips beneath the seductive surface to examine its dangerous depths, exploring its power to fascinate, enslave and deceive. Mesmerising, blackly comic, and delicately crafted, this is an exquisite novel from a contemporary master

En la América de los años cincuenta, un muchacho se enfrenta a los vaivenes afectivos de la infancia y a los ritos de paso de la adolescencia. Pronto su historia se verá marcada por el descubrimiento incomodo de la diferencia: su homosexualidad. Al principio es solo una intuicion confusa que pronto escogera sus formas hasta convertirse en inequivoca obsesion. Escindido entre su identidad sexual y su miedo a ser distinto, el protagonista recorre el titubeante camino por la pubertad: la relacion dificil con sus padres divorciados, el laborioso aprendizaje de las relaciones sociales, el intento de noviazgo, la busqueda anhelante de amigos, confidentes y modelos, y los perturbadores inicios en la sexualidad. Esta es su historia, contada por si mismo con lirismo pero tambien con crudeza e ironia, con ternura pero sin autocomplacencia. Su proceso hacia la deseada madurez que culmina con un episodio cinico y cruel- estara falto de definitivo eslabon: aprender a quererse asi mismo.