2014 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction
E.L. Doctorow is the author of such critically acclaimed novels as “Ragtime” (National Book Critics Circle Award), “World’s Fair” (National Book Award), “Billy Bathgate” (PEN/Faulkner Award), “The March” (National Book Critics Circle Award, PEN/Faulkner Award) and “Andrew’s Brain.”
“E.L. Doctorow is our very own Charles Dickens, summoning a distinctly American place and time, channeling our myriad voices,” said Billington. “Each book is a vivid canvas, filled with color and drama. In each, he chronicles an entirely different world.”
“I was a child who read everything I could get my hands on,” said Doctorow, on hearing of the award. “Eventually I asked of a story not only what was to happen next but how is this done? How am I made to live from words on a page? And so I became a writer myself. But is there a novelist who doesn’t live with self-doubt? The high honor of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction confers a blessed moment of peace and resolution.”
E.L. Doctorow is one of America’s most lauded writers and his career spans more than 50 years. In addition to the numerous awards he has received for specific books, his body of work has been honored with a National Humanities Medal (1998), a listing in the New York Writers Hall of Fame (2012), the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction (2012) and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters of the National Book Foundation (2013), among others.
- View Resource Guide on E.L. Doctorow
- News Release: Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction Awarded to E.L. Doctorow (April 16, 2014)
- Video of E.L. Doctorow at the 2014 National Book Festival
- “The Last Word: E.L. Doctorow on Storytelling,” Library of Congress Magazine, July-August 2014
- Video of E.L. Doctorow at the 2005 National Book Festival