Short answers, pulled from the story.
E. L. Doctorow is best known for his works of historical fiction, particularly the novels Ragtime (1975), Billy Bathgate (1989), and The March (2005). These books place invented characters alongside real historical figures such as Sigmund Freud, J. P. Morgan, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
E. L. Doctorow won the National Book Critics Circle Award three times: for Ragtime in 1975, for Billy Bathgate in 1990, and for The March in 2005.
E. L. Doctorow was born on the 6th of January 1931 in the Bronx, New York. He died of lung cancer on the 21st of July 2015 in Manhattan, aged 84, and is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Several of Doctorow's novels became films: Welcome to Hard Times (1967) starring Henry Fonda, Daniel (1983) starring Timothy Hutton, Ragtime (1981), Billy Bathgate (1991) starring Dustin Hoffman, Jolene (2008) starring Jessica Chastain, and Wakefield (2016) starring Bryan Cranston. Ragtime was also adapted as a Broadway musical in 1998, which won four Tony Awards.
Before writing full time, Doctorow spent nine years as a book editor. He worked at New American Library alongside authors including Ian Fleming and Ayn Rand, then served as editor in chief of The Dial Press from 1964 to 1969, where he published James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Ernest J. Gaines, and William Kennedy.
Doctorow held the Loretta and Lewis Glucksman Professorship of English and American Letters at New York University. He also taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the Yale School of Drama, the University of Utah, Princeton University, and the University of California, Irvine.