It can be safely asserted that The Hours, authored by Michael Cunningham, is one of the most successful American novels in recent years. Its publication in 1998 was immediately succeeded by wide acclaim: in early 1999 it was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award; later that year it was granted both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; in 2003, "The Hours", a movie adapted from this novel, starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep, won the Golden Globe Awards for Best Drama, received nine Oscar nominations and earned the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actress.

The author Michael Cunningham was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1952 and grew up in Pasadena, California. He received his B.A. in English literature from Stanford University and his M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts) from the University of Iowa. In 1984, he published his maiden work...