Azzedine Alaïa, SS 1997. view from the exhibition at the Salle Matisse.Courtesy of Monsieur Azzedine AlaïaA professor of creative writing at Princeton University, Edmund White is one of the most prominent writers of contemporary American literature. The author of numerous masterpieces, he has proven himself a standout writer of memoirs (his most recent book, Inside a Pearl, is an account of his time in Paris); critic (most notably for the New York Review of Books); novelist (from his début novel Forgetting Elena) and...