Biography

E. L. Doctorow

Named for Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was born in New York City, attended the Bronx High School of Science, graduated with honors from Kenyon College, and did graduate work at Columbia University. He began to devote himself full time to writing and teaching in 1969, and today is generally considered to be among the most important novelists of the second half of the 20th century. He has received the National Book Award, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howell Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal. Doctorow's third novel, The Book of Daniel, was adapted in 1983 into the film Daniel, starring Timothy Hutton and directed by Sidney Lumet. His subsequent novel, Ragtime, was named one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the Modern Library and was adapted into a successful Broadway musical in 1998. His most recent novel, The March, was published in 2005 and was a finalist for the National Book Award.