Best American Short Stories 2021
From a stirring portrait of Rodney King’s final days to a surreal video game set in the Middle East, with real consequences, to an indigenous boy’s gripping escape from his captors, this collection renders profoundly empathetic depictions of the variety of human experience. These stories are poignant reminders of the possibilities of fiction: as you sink into world after world, become character after character, as Ward writes, you “forget yourself, and then, upon surfacing, know yourself and others anew." The Best American Short Stories 2021 includes GABRIEL BUMP • BRANDON HOBSON • DAVID MEANS• JANE PEK • TRACEY ROSE PEYTON • GEORGE SAUNDERS • BRYAN WASHINGTON • KEVIN WILSON • C PAM ZHANG and others