Unsayable
memoir · First published 2026
Author guide
Michael Cunningham Books in Order
Michael Cunningham is an American novelist and writer whose fiction often explores memory, sexuality, family, art, time, and the connections between ordinary lives and literary history. His major novels include A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours, Specimen Days, By Nightfall, The Snow Queen, and Day. The Hours won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Cunningham has also published short fiction, travel writing, and memoir, and has taught creative writing at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and Yale University.
literary fictionnovelsshort storiesmemoircreative nonfictionscreenwriting
Catalog record updated .
Michael Cunningham's Newest Book
Not sure where to begin?
Start with one of these
The Hours
The best-known and most acclaimed entry point, and a representative example of Cunningham’s literary fiction.
A Wild Swan and Other Tales
A concise entry point to his short fiction through eleven fairy-tale retellings.
Outside the series
Bibliography by category
Novels (9)
- Golden States
novel · 1984
David Stark, an adolescent and mainstay of a family of women nearing physical or emotional collapse, hitchhikes from Southern California to San Francisco to locate a wandering sister and encounters adulthood.
- A Home at the End of the World
novel · 1990
- Flesh and Blood
novel · 1995
Flesh and Blood follows the Stassos family through four generations, as it is transformed by ambition, love, violence, and accumulating history. Constantine Stassos, a Greek immigrant, marries Mary Cuccio, an Italian-American girl, and…
- The Hours
novel · 1998
A daring, deeply affecting third novel by the author of A Home at the End of the World and Flesh and Blood. In The Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the…
- Land’s End: A Walk Through Provincetown
nonfiction · 2002
- Specimen Days
novel · 2005
In a novel of human progress and social decline, three characters are seen in three different eras: the Industrial Revolution; the 21st century and 150 years into the future as the poet Walt Whitman presides over each episode.
- By Nightfall
novel · 2010
Peter and Rebecca Harris: mid-forties denizens of Manhattan's SoHo, nearing the apogee of committed careers in the arts—he a dealer, she an editor. With a spacious loft, a college-age daughter in Boston, and lively friends, they are…
- The Snow Queen
novel · 2014
A heartbroken man turns to religion after seeing a vision in the sky above Central Park while his musician brother takes drugs he thinks will help him compose a ballad for his seriously ill wife.
- Day
novel · 2023
NATIONAL BESTELLER • An “exquisite” (The Boston Globe) exploration of love and loss, the struggles and limitations of family life—and how we all must learn to live together and apart—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours…
Nonfiction (1)
- Unsayable
memoir · 2026
Short fiction (1)
- A Wild Swan and Other Tales
short-story-collection · 2015
Frequently asked questions about Michael Cunningham
Who is Michael Cunningham?
Michael Cunningham is an American novelist and screenwriter best known for The Hours. He is a Professor in the Practice of Creative Writing at Yale University.
Sources: english.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)pulitzer.org (opens in a new tab)
Where was Michael Cunningham born and educated?
He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1952, and grew up in Pasadena, California. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Stanford University and an MFA from the University of Iowa.
Sources: pulitzer.org (opens in a new tab)writing.upenn.edu (opens in a new tab)
Is Michael Cunningham gay?
Yes. Cunningham has publicly identified as gay, while also saying he does not want to be defined solely as a “gay writer.”
Sources: publishersweekly.com (opens in a new tab)theguardian.com (opens in a new tab)
Which writers influenced Michael Cunningham?
Virginia Woolf was a central influence, particularly through Mrs. Dalloway, which inspired The Hours. Walt Whitman was another important influence on Cunningham’s literary imagination.
Sources: theguardian.com (opens in a new tab)whiting.org (opens in a new tab)
What awards has Michael Cunningham won?
Cunningham won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Hours. He also received the Whiting Writers’ Award in 1995 and the Lambda Literary Award for Flesh and Blood.
Sources: pulitzer.org (opens in a new tab)penfaulkner.org (opens in a new tab)english.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)