‘More relevant now than ever’: how Virginia Woolf recaptured the cultural zeitgeist

Tina Ghavari’s adaptation of Night and Day stars Haley Bennett as Katherine Hilbery. Photograph: Tom Trambow

She’s long been admired by students of English literature, but 85 years after her death, Virginia Woolf has broken out of the seminar room to become an unexpected cultural phenomenon.

The author of Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, whose innovative prose helped redefine the modern novel, is finding a new audience through a string of high-profile adaptations.