‘Ragtime’ author EL Doctorow dies

Writer EL Doctorow, who wryly reimagined the American experience in such novels as Ragtime and The March, and applied its lessons to the past and the future in fiction and non- fiction, has died. He was 84.

He died at a New York hospital from complications of lung cancer, his son, Richard Doctorow, confirmed.

Considered one of the major authors of the 20th century, he enjoyed critical and popular success over his 50-year career. He won the National Book Award for fiction in 1986 for World’s Fair, the National Book Critics Circle award in 1989 for Billy Bathgate, and in 2005 for The March.

Us president Barack Obama praised Doctorow on Twitter as “one of America’s greatest novelists”.

“His books taught me much, and he will be missed,” Obama wrote .

Besides Doctorow’s 10 novels, he published two books of short stories, a play called Drinks Before Dinner and numerous essays and articles. “I don’t know what I set out to do,” Doctorow said in 2006 after the publication of The March, his acclaimed Civil War novel. “Someone pointed out to me a couple of years ago that you could line them up and in effect now with this book, 150 years of American history... And this was entirely unplanned.”