Heart Disease Claimed Author Harris' Life

A coroner's official says heart disease, complicated by high blood pressure and a hardening of the arteries, is what killed author E. Lynn Harris last week.

County coroner Craig Harvey said Wednesday that the 54-year-old died of natural causes. Harris died July 23 while visiting Los Angeles to promote his latest book.

Harris lived in Atlanta and was considered a pioneer of gay black fiction, enjoying unprecedented success in the genre. He wrote 11 novels, and ten of them became New York Times best-sellers.

Harris was born in Flint, Mich., and raised in Little Rock, Ark. He attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville where he was the school's first black yearbook editor and the first black male Razorbacks cheerleader.