Michael Cunningham Named Fairfax Prize Winner

Novelist Michael Cunningham has been named the recipient of the 2008 Fairfax Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Literary Arts. Cunningham is the author of four novels, including The Hours, which earned both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. The Fairfax Prize presentation and a talk by the author will close the 2008 Fall for the Book Festival on Friday evening, September 26.

“Michael Cunningham’s novels have earned both remarkable critical acclaim and a huge popular audience,” said William Miller, executive director of the festival. “The success of his books on these levels speaks to the heart of what our festival is about — building connections between great writers and the wide reading public. We’re honored to have Cunningham join us for our 10th annual year.”

Michael Cunningham’s most famous book, The Hours, was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and was adapted as a major motion picture, starring Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, with Kidman winning the Best Actress Oscar, and it was also nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards, with wins in the categories for Best Motion Picture-Drama and Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture-Drama.

Cunningham has written three additional novels — A Home at the End of the World, also adapted as a film; Flesh and Blood; and, most recently, Specimen Days— and one book of nonfiction, Land’s End: A Walk Through Provincetown. Cunningham also collaborated with Susan Minot on the screenplay for her novel Evening. In addition to his books, Cunningham’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review and other publications. His story “White Angel” was chosen for Best American Short Stories 1989, and another story, “Mister Brother,” appeared in the 2000 O. Henry Collection. He has received a Whiting Writers Award (1995), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1993), a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1988) and a Michener Fellowship from the University of Iowa (1982).

Since 2003, the Fairfax Prize has been awarded to writers with significant achievements in several of the following criteria: writing and publishing excellent works that contribute significantly to American or international culture; generously giving personal time and talents to the development of literature and literary endeavors; mentoring younger writers; and giving special service to the community of writers, such as editing anthologies or journals that give opportunities for publication to other writers. In 2007, the Fairfax County Public Library Foundation began sponsoring the Fairfax Prize, contributing the prize money and helping to select the recipient.