Writer Roger Rosenblatt, left, with E.L. Doctorow at the 2002 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement dinner. Photo: Patrick McMullan.

About E. L. Doctorow
 
A 1952 graduate of Kenyon College, E.L. Doctorow is the author of Ragtime, perhaps his most popular novel. Ragtime was adapted into a film and a four-time Tony Award-winning stage musical. Doctorow's other novels include The Book of Daniel, Welcome to Hard Times, Billy Bathgate, Loon Lake, The Waterworks, World's Fair, and in 2000, City of God.

After graduating with honors from Kenyon, Doctorow attended graduate school at Columbia University and worked as a television and motion-picture script reader for four years before becoming an editor at New American Library. In 1964, he joined Dial Press, where he rose to editor-in-chief and vice president before leaving in 1969.

Doctorow received an honorary degree from Kenyon in 1976. His literary honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the John Guggenheim Fellowship, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, and the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1998, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal at the White House.

Roger Rosenblatt's toast to E.L. Doctorow.