Edgar Lawrence Doctorow passed away on July 21, at the age of 84, leaving a legacy of twelve novels, three short story collections, a play and three essay collections that have earned him a reputation as one of the most important American literary figures of the past half century. Upon his death, President Barack Obama paid tribute to him as “one of America’s greatest novelists.” E. L. Doctorow was born on January 6, 1931 in the Bronx, the son of Rose and David Doctorow, second-generation Americans of Jewish Russian origin. He attended Kenyon College, where he majored in philosophy and graduated with honors in 1952. Then, he completed a postgraduate course on English Drama at Columbia University and served for two years with the USA Army in Germany.
Doctorow began his literary career in 1960 with Welcome to Hard Times, while working as senior editor with New American Library. This first novel, a book that eventually qualified as a “post-western,” was a response to the poor-quality manuscripts that he had reviewed as script reader for CBS Television and Columbia Pictures. Six years later, he published Big as Life, a science fiction novel that never satisfied readers, publisher, or the author himself, who did not allow it to be reissued. While working on his third novel—The Book of Daniel (1971), a historical fiction that deals with the conviction and execution of a fictional couple inspired by the Rosenberg case—Doctorow was offered a post as writer in residence at the University of California at Irvine, the first of a number of teaching appointments that he held throughout his life, including positions at Sarah Lawrence College, Utah, Princeton, and New York University..
