
Unsayable
$23.99
- Paperback
304 pages
- Release Date
28 July 2026
Summary
An intimate memoir portraying a life spent trying to describe the indescribable—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of The Hours and Day.
Go ahead. Try using language to slit the skin of mortality to see what’s on the other side.
At the age of three, Michael Cunningham began obsessively collecting the names of things: oak, Chevrolet, finch, tulip, Tupperware… Each word rendered the world ever so slightly more understandable, mor…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780008836399 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0008836396 |
| Author: | Michael Cunningham |
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Imprint: | Fourth Estate Ltd |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 304 |
| Release Date: | 28 July 2026 |
| Weight: | 270g |
| Dimensions: | 21mm x 135mm x 216mm |

You Can Find This Book In
Critics Review
‘Such a generous book, essential for anyone wanting to relearn the arts of curiosity and devotion’ MIRANDA JULY
‘What a shimmering memory lane we readers get to walk down in this book, led by one of the most enchanting stylists of our time. Any moment we stretch a mind’s hand out, our fingertips meet the weightless touch of a hummingbird. Is that hummingbird Michael Cunningham’s memory or our own? It doesn’t matter. The joy is for everyone who reads with memory and imagination’ YIYUN LI
‘A luminous meditation on writing and on life, and how the two entwine, Unsayable is a memoir like no other, from one of the great writers of our times’ TASH AW
‘From one of our great living masters comes a book about making sense of a life through writing. In true Cunningham fashion, it is also a book about time; how time’s passage shapes our understanding of ourselves, our desires and our capacity to articulate our experiences. I read this book in a single, astonished sitting. There are insights, and anecdotes, contained in Unsayable that I will treasure and return to for the rest of my life’ JORDAN TANAHILL
Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham is the author of six novels, including:
- A Home at the End of the World
- Flesh and Blood
- The Hours (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize)
- Specimen Days
- By Nightfall
He is also the author of Land’s End: A Walk in Provincetown. His most recent novel is The Snow Queen. He lives in New York.
Returns
This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.



