EL Doctorow, one of America’s most accomplished novelists of recent decades, died yesterday at the age of 84.
The award-winning author of historical fiction died in a New York hospital of complications from lung cancer, his son Richard Doctorow told the New York Times.
Born in the Bronx, his illustrious career spanned some six decades and a dozen novels, as well as numerous other writings.
Each work took different facts and fictional elements in a new direction, from Westerns to the detective story.
“E.L. Doctorow was one of America’s greatest novelists. His books taught me much, and he will be missed,” President Barack Obama said in a message posted on Twitter.
After working at odd jobs and then in publishing, Doctorow’s first book, 1960′s Welcome to Hard Times was a Western. He followed up with 1966′s Big as Life, inspired by science fiction.
The Book of Daniel, published in 1971, intertwined personal narrative with history.
Obama has called Doctorow’s Ragtime a personal favorite.
That work, published in 1975 and set in New York during the Gilded Age, tells the story of main protagonist Coalhouse Walker Jr, a black musician victimised by racism.
In his 2006 novel, The March, Doctorow recounts one of the climactic moments of the US Civil War – the march of Union general William Sherman from Atlanta to Savannah toward the end of conflict.
Another masterwork, Billy Bathgate, published in 1998, explores the underbelly of the organised crime world during 1920s and 1930s America.
Last year, Doctorow won the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, awarded to writers with “strong, unique, enduring voices that, throughout long, consistently accomplished careers, have told us something about the American experience.”
He is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.
- © AFP 2015.
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