Michael Cunningham (born November 6, 1952) is an American author living in Brooklyn, New York with his husband, Ken Corbett. He is the author of several short stories, non-fiction essays, two screenplays, and eight novels, starting with Golden States in 1984. In 1998, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel The Hours, which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 2002.

Cunningham’s novels are largely works of contemporary fiction, as they primarily take place in present-day settings and discuss current events and social issues. However, they also frequently explore different time periods, either in the form of memories or shifting narration, in order to reflect the way that society has changed—or failed to change—in relation to these issues. For example, The Hours uses Virginia Woolf as a focal point, showing her life in 1923, Mrs. Brown in 1949, and Clarissa Vaughn—referred to as “Mrs. Dalloway” after Woolf’s novel—in 1999. Through these women, Cunningham explores issues of sexuality, societal expectations, and womanhood over nearly eight decades. Similarly, his novel Specimen Days (2005) contains three stories, one set during the Industrial Revolution, the next in the early-21st century, and the last set 150 years in the future.