LOS ANGELES, CA (PRWEB) February 19, 2004-—Michael Cunningham, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Hours” visits UCLA Live in an evening titled, “Wrestling with a Genius: My Life and Virginia Woolf’s,” which includes discussion and reading from his work. The program concludes with audience questions and takes place at 8 p.m., Friday, April 2 at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. There will be a book signing following the event. For tickets call 310-825-2101 or visit www.UCLALive.org.

In his astonishing Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Hours,” Cunningham fashioned a startling original and poignant homage to Virginia Woolf, seamlessly threading the lives of three women across time and place into a brilliant narrative whole. Crediting Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway” with allowing him to entertain “the wild hope” of being a writer, Cunningham deftly evokes fleeting thoughts and states of consciousness in his books. “The Hours” was recently made into an acclaimed film starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, which includes Nicole Kidman’s win for Best Actress.
   
“The Hours” opens with Woolf’s last days before her suicide in 1941 and is the story of three women living at different times in the 20th century. All are linked by Woolf’s 1925 novel, “Mrs. Dalloway:” Virginia Woolf herself, modern-day Manhattanite Clarissa Vaughan, and Laura Brown, a mother and wife living in Los Angeles at the end of World War II.

“If [Michael Cunningham’s ‘The Hours’ does not make you jump up from the sofa, looking at life and literature in new ways, check to see if you have a pulse.” — USA Today

For his UCLA Live appearance, Cunningham discusses what Woolf means to him and the rest of us. “She changed literature in ways that we now take more or less for granted, because now people just write that way,” says Cunningham.

In addition to having been awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Cunningham received the PEN/Faulkner Award, also for “The Hours,” a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Michener Fellowship from the University of Iowa.

Cunningham says that he looks forward to lectures, and in a recent Post-Standard article he stated, “It’s a great thing to travel around and actually see and speak to the people who care about books. It removes some of that level of abstraction. You kind of have a sense of who this is for, and that’s a very good thing.”

Cunningham’s other novels include “A Home at the End of the World” and “Flesh and Blood,” which both received critical acclaim. He also published “Land's End: A Walk Through Provincetown,” a work of non-fiction. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and DoubleTake. A film version of “A Home at the End of the World,” with actors Sissy Spacek and Colin Farrell, is scheduled for release in 2004.

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. from the University of Iowa. He currently lives in New York City.

Michael Cunningham visits Royce Hall as part of UCLA Live’s Spoken Word series, which also includes Ira Glass and Chris Ware on April 10 and David Sedaris on June 24-25.

Tickets for Michael Cunningham are available for $35, $30, and $25 at the UCLA Central Ticket Office at the southwest corner of the James West Alumni Center, online at www.UCLALive.org and at all Ticketmaster outlets. UCLA students may purchase tickets in advance for $17. Student rush tickets at the same price are offered to all students with a valid i.d. one hour prior to show time. For more information or to charge by phone, call 310-825-2101.

Press images are available at:
http://files.performingarts.ucla.edu/0304images/michaelcunningham/ ;  

UCLA Live
An internationally acclaimed producer and presenter of music, dance, theater and spoken word, UCLA Live brings hundreds of outstanding and provocative artists to Los Angeles each year. Committed to supporting the development of new work, UCLA Live has presented both major and emerging artists including Pina Bausch, Kronos Quartet, Philip Glass, Bill T. Jones and Robert Wilson. Lectures, residencies, and extensive outreach programs expand the impact of its unparalleled performances that include a lively mix of distinguished masters and innovators from around the world.

Scalla Sheen (ssheen@arts.ucla.edu)                                       310-825-5202                                                      
Karen R. Nelson (krnelson@arts.ucla.edu)
310-794-4044
Nicole Cavazos (ncavazos@arts.ucla.edu)
310-206-5305