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The Hours

by Michael Cunningham

Three lives in conversation with Virginia Woolf

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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    Pulitzer Prize winner

    The metadata identifies the novel as Pulitzer Prize-winning.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Three lives in conversation with Virginia Woolf

Michael Cunningham interweaves Virginia Woolf’s final days before World War II with the fictional lives of poet Samuel and his lifelong friend Clarissa. Woolf’s life and work provide a point of connection for these stories, which examine competing obligations to love, family inheritance, hope, and despair. The structure places a historical account alongside contemporary characters negotiating the claims of friends, lovers, and relatives, giving the novel a shared framework for exploring how people seek a life that feels balanced and rewarding.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in fiction engaging with Virginia Woolf’s life and work.
  • Readers who enjoy novels connecting multiple lives across historical and contemporary settings.
  • Readers drawn to literary fiction about love, family obligations, hope, and despair.

Themes

Virginia Woolf’s life and workLove and family inheritanceHope and despairBalancing personal life with obligations to others

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that became a motion picture starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, directed by Stephen Daldry from a screenplay by David Hare.

In The Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. The narrative of Woolf's last days before her suicide early in World War II counterpoints the fictional stories of Samuel, a famous poet whose life has been shadowed by his talented and troubled mother, and his lifelong friend Clarissa, who strives to forge a balanced and rewarding life in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family.

Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, this is Cunningham's most remarkable achievement to date.

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