E.L. Doctorow

E.L. Doctorow (1931–2015) was one of the most important American novelists of the twentieth century, celebrated for his ability to weave fictional narratives into the fabric of American history. Born Edgar Lawrence Doctorow in New York City, he worked as an editor at Dial Press before publishing his breakthrough novel Ragtime (1975), which reimagines the Gilded Age through the intertwined lives of fictional and historical figures including Emma Goldman, Harry Houdini, and J.P. Morgan. Doctorow's major novels include Welcome to Hard Times (1960), The Book of Daniel (1971), World's Fair (1985), Billy Bathgate (1989), and The March (2005). His work is characterised by its deep engagement with American history and myth, its formal inventiveness, and its moral seriousness about the relationship between power, money, and democracy in American life. He received the National Book Foundation's Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2013, the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the William Dean Howells Medal. Doctorow spent many years teaching at New York University and was a towering figure in American literary culture until his death at age eighty-four.