Three Screenplays

"A provocative inquiry into the process of artistic alchemy that attempts the nearly impossible, the translation of fiction into film."-Booklist

One of America's most accomplished and acclaimed contemporary writers, E. L. Doctorow has played an active role in transforming his novels into films, writing screenplay adaptations of three works: The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, and Loon Lake. These scripts reveal a new aspect of Doctorow's remarkable talents and offer unique insight into the complex relationship between literature and motion pictures. Doctorow revised his Ragtime screenplay for this book and wrote a preface on the art of screenwriting.

E. L. Doctorow's novels are Welcome to Hard Times, The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, Loon Lake, Lives of the Poets, World's Fair, Billy Bathgate, The Waterworks, and City of God. Among his honors are the National Book Award, two National Book Critics Circle awards, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the National Humanities Medal. Paul Levine is a professor of American literature at Copenhagen University.