Featuring work by: Walid Abdallah * Matt Baca * Gabriella Bedetti * Chris Bentley * Sebastian Bitticks * Don Boes * Don Bogen * Paola Bruni * Jessica Campbell * Kevin Clark * Mark Crimmins * Robbie Curry * Ron Dean * Dante Di Stefano * Raoul Felder * Sonia Feldman * Andy Fogle * Mike Gillis * Farouk Goweda * João Luís Barreto Guimarães * Stephen D. Gutierrez * Samina Hadi-Tabassum * Becky Hagenston * Harrison Hill * Charles Hood * Fred Hood * Julie Jones * Robert Kerwin * Ronald Kovach * Jessie Kraemer * Nasma Kublawi * Lynn Martin * Michela Martini * Bruce McKay * Elizabeth McKenzie * Henri Meschonnic * Tom Miller * Yxta Maya Murray * Jonathan Muzzall * Calvin Olsen * Romeo Oriogun * Derek N. Otsuji * Cassandra Passarelli * Micah Perks * Andrew Porter * Jory Post * Kristel Rietesel-Low * Giacomo Sartori * Vandana Sehrawat * Neal Snidow * Eleanor Spiess-Ferris * Joseph Thomas * Andreas Trolf * Marcos Villatoro * Maria Zoccola

A collection of the year's best stories selected by celebrated two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward In her introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2021, guest editor JesmynWard says that the best fiction offers the reader a "sense of repair."The stories in this year's collection accomplish just that, immersing the reader in powerfully imagined worlds and allowing them to bring some of that power into their own lives. 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