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E. L. Doctorow

E. L. Doctorow (1931–2015) was born in the Bronx to Russian Jewish parents in 1931. The heritage of the musical and literary high culture of Europe resonates in the complex composition and the rich relationships of his historical novels. He achieved his international breakthrough in 1975 with Ragtime, a novel about the social tensions in New York at the turn of the 20th century, for which he received The National Book Critics Circle Award. This was followed by, among others, Billy Bathgate and The March, both of which won the PEN/Faulkner Award.

Photo by Keith Meyers