The Best American Short Stories 2021
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3.6 • 21 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
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 Jesmyn Ward 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
Customer Reviews
Darker Realities
As Guest Editor, Jesmyn Ward, has curated a collection of short stories that truly reflects the uncertainty of the pandemic. A window of fear and drama that must have put these authors heads in strange places. What emerges is a gallery of stories that tackle feelings f belonging, self discovery, and the need for acceptance.
The myriad of voices we get from across the human spectrum is one of a kind. A credit to Jesmyn Ward’s thoughtful selection process. We see every angle of the human experience express a universal grasping for, redefining of, and rejection of reality. What is left is some semblance of normal that is unique to each and every voice in this release.
The respective authors clearly were influenced by the disorder and chaos of everyday life within a pandemic. The darkness of these days reverberates deeply in every paragraph and vignette. There is not a lot of hope for happy endings but there are the beginnings of the search for closure and reconciliation. One of the best short story collections yet.