PEN/Faulkner Award 1999: Complete list of winners

The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1999 went to Michael Cunningham for The Hours, a novel that would soon become one of the decade’s most celebrated literary works. Cunningham’s inventive exploration of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway across three different time periods—following Woolf herself, a 1950s housewife, and a modern-day New York editor—showcased exactly the kind of ambitious, formally inventive fiction that the PEN/Faulkner Award has long championed. The award, which honors the most distinguished fiction by American writers, recognized a book that was already gaining significant literary momentum and would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year.

The PEN/Faulkner Award holds a special place in American letters, focusing exclusively on American authors and voting only among writers rather than critics or academics. This peer-recognition model has made it one of the most respected honors in literary circles, and the 1999 selection of The Hours underscored the award’s keen eye for experimental storytelling that pushes narrative boundaries. Cunningham’s novel demonstrated that ambitious, intricately layered fiction could also find mainstream acclaim, a quality that made this particular PEN/Faulkner win especially significant as the literary landscape shifted toward the new millennium.

Here’s a closer look at the winners from the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award:

Fiction

• The Hours by Michael Cunningham