Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer prize-winning book The Hours – inspired by Virginia Woolf’s seminal 1925 novel, Mrs Dalloway – imagines one day in the lives of three women separated across time periods. The triptych follows Woolf in the throes of writing Mrs Dalloway; Laura Brown, a depressed housewife who is reading Woolf’s novel in postwar America; and Clarissa Vaughan, a New Yorker who acts as a contemporary embodiment of Woolf’s titular character.
Cunningham’s 1998 text, though widely acclaimed, was initially deemed unadaptable due to its nonlinear structure and stream-of-consciousness approach that paid homage to Woolf’s pioneering style. However, since its publication, The Hours (which takes its name from Mrs Dalloway’s working title), has been reinterpreted as an opera and, most notably, a 2002 film directed by Stephen Daldry.
