A collection of the year’s best essays, selected by award-winning writer Alexander Chee.
Alexander Chee, an essayist of “virtuosity and power” (Washington Post), selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.
For 2021: “
New Yorker writer Schulz (Being Wrong) collects essays that skillfully combine journalistic and literary sensibilities in this powerful addition to the annual anthology series… This is a moving retrospective of a singular year.”—
Publishers Weekly General Praise for
The Best American Essays: “[A] thoughtful entry in the long-running series...The works in this year’s collection are a mix of the disconcerting, the probing, and the self-reflective, and well-suited to challenging times.”—
Publishers Weekly “These essays challenge personal and political assumptions and show us life in all it complexities and contradictions. Which in this American moment, and in every other, matters.”—
USA Today 
