‘More relevant now than ever’: how Virginia Woolf recaptured the cultural zeitgeist

With an adaptation of Night and Day hitting cinemas, the pioneering author’s work continues to inspire audiences She’s long been admired by students of English literature, but 85 years after her death, Virginia Woolf has broken out of the seminar room to become an unexpected cultural phenomenon. The author of Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, whose innovative prose helped redefine the modern novel, is finding a new audience through a string of high-profile adaptations. This Friday sees the release of Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day in cinemas, an adaptation of Woolf’s novel of the same name. The romcom, starring Haley Bennett, Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders, Jack Whitehall and Lily Allen, is about a female astronomer whose carefully ordered life is disrupted when she becomes entangled in a love triangle – forcing her to confront romantic desire and the patriarchal expectations of Edwardian society. Clarissa – a modern-day reimagining of Mrs Dalloway set in contemporary Lagos, Nigeria – became the talk of Cannes last month. “I’ve long been a huge fan of Virginia Woolf,” said Night and Day’s director, Tina Gharavi. “She was an iconic lesbian author who wrot