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E. L. Doctorow (Edgar Laurence Doctorow)[dok´turO´´] Pronunciation Key, 1931–, American novelist, b. New York City. Doctorow is known for his skillful blending of fiction and fact into reconstructions of eras in American history. His first work was a novel of the 19th-century West, Welcome to Hard Times (1960). He won wide recognition for The Book of Daniel (1971), which is based on the Rosenberg Case. Doctorow's other novels include Ragtime (1975), which recreates pre–World War I America; Loon Lake (1980), portraying American life during the Great Depression; World's Fair (1985; National Book Award), a semiautobiographical work set in the Bronx of the 1930s; Billy Bathgate (1989), a tale of Prohibition-era gangsters; The Waterworks (1994), set in 1870s New York; and City of God (2000), a late 20th-century exploration of ideas and faith. He has also written nonfiction, e.g., the essays collected in Reporting the Universe (2003).
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