Edmund White touches down in Toronto

Author remembers Toronto bathhouse riots

By Frank Prendergast • April 24, 2014 5:54 pm EDT

Edmund White, author of such classic gay books as A Boy’s Own Story, City Boy and Inside a Pearl, his recently published memoir about his years in Paris, was in Toronto on April 24. He looks back at the Toronto bathhouse riots and the Stonewall uprising in New York.

Edmund White, author of such classic gay books as A Boy’s Own Story; City Boy; Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel; and the latest installment of his memoir, Inside a Pearl, about his years in Paris, is in Toronto being honoured at the Bonham Centre Awards Gala on April 24.

In the above interview, White talks about a previous trip to Toronto, during the bathhouse riots. He talks about the sense of power he felt participating in the protest and compares it to his experience at the Stonewall uprising in New York.

More from our video interview with White will be released in the coming days.