マイケル・カニンガム来日

『めぐりあう時間たち―三人のダロウェイ夫人』の作者マイケル・カニンガムが初来日する。新作『星々の生まれるところ』（南條竹則　訳、集英社）の刊行を記念して、11月8日、時事通信ホールで「われわれはどこへ行くのか？　9・11以後の文学と世界」という講演を行うそうだ。

• マイケル・カニンガム講演会のお知らせ 〔集英社〕　

星々の生まれるところ

Specimen Days

[マイケル・カニンガム関連]　

• http://www.michaelcunninghamwriter.com/

• Michael Cunningham [Wikipedia EN]

Although Cunningham is gay and has been partnered for 18 years, he dislikes being referred to as only a "gay writer", according to a PlanetOut article because while being gay does greatly influence his work, he feels that it is not (and should not be) his defining characteristic.

• Michael Cunningham on success and Nicole's nose [Gay.com]

The film aside for a moment, what's this bit in The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage about Cunningham having had qualms over the years about being known as a "gay writer"?

"I don't know if I would say that I don't consider myself a 'gay writer,' " the author explains. "I hope I never put it in just exactly those terms. I consider myself a gay man who writes, and it matters about as much and as little that I'm a white man, an American, a member of the upper-middle class. All these things have a huge effect on what I write, but they're not the overriding, distinguishing characteristic. And I am a little tired of a separate gay literature, though there was a real need for it for awhile. But now I feel like we have grown beyond it. It seems just about as pointless to separate the gay books in a bookstore as it does to separate the books written by women from the books written by men."

• Home Making; Michael Mayer and Michael Cunningham's perfect partnership brings 'A Home at the End of the World' to the big screen [METRO WEEKLY]

Cunningham, who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but raised in Los Angeles, and Mayer, who grew up in Rockville, Md., have had their romantic ups and downs. But both are currently in long term relationships -- Cunningham for 17 years, Mayer for seven. And both have been out for decades. Cunningham's fame, however, turned out to be difficult for his parents in ways he never could have envisioned.

"They had a hard time about my being so publicly gay," he says. "I had been out to them for a long time, but when I started to publish, I knew it was morally incumbent on me to make it very clear that I was gay to anybody that I talked to. My parents sort of felt 'Oh great, not only do we have to know you're gay, the people of Japan have to know you're gay?' It was almost like a second coming out. And it was difficult for them for a while.

THE HOURS―めぐりあう時間たち 三人のダロウェイ夫人

この世の果ての家 (角川文庫)