The Best Short Stories 2021 cover art

The Best Short Stories 2021

The O. Henry Prize Winners

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The Best Short Stories 2021

By: Jenny Minton Quigley, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - editor
Narrated by: Maris Calin, Feodor Chin, Frankie Corzo, Gary Furlong, Deepti Gupta, Hillary Huber, Sullivan Jones, John Lee, Katharine Lee McEwan, Adenrele Ojo, Fred Sanders, Bahni Turpin
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About this listen

 Twenty prizewinning stories selected from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year—continuing the O. Henry Prize's century-long tradition of literary excellence.

"Widely regarded as the nation's most prestigious awards for short fiction." —The Atlantic Monthly.

Now entering its second century, the prestigious annual story anthology has a new title, a new look, and a new guest editor. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has brought her own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and young emerging voices. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Adichie, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction.

Featured in this collection: Daphne Palasi Andreades • David Means • Sindya Bhanoo • Crystal Wilkinson • Alice Jolly • David Rabe • Karina Sainz Borgo (translator, Elizabeth Bryer) • Jamel Brinkley • Tessa Hadley • Adachioma Ezeano • Anthony Doerr • Tiphanie Yanique • Joan Silber • Jowhor Ile • Emma Cline • Asali Solomon • Ben Hinshaw • Caroline Albertine Minor (translator, Caroline Waight) • Jianan Qian • Sally Rooney
 Anthologies Anthologies & Short Stories Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Short Stories

Critic reviews

"Widely regarded as the nation's most prestigious awards for short fiction." --The Atlantic Monthly
All stars
Most relevant
A selection of stories from all over the world, interesting and varied and even when they aren’t overly relatable to me, the fantastic narration and high quality of it keep me hooked. Looking forward to another instalment.

Fantastic reading

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Loved this collection. I fail to understand what other listener's were expecting, when they decided to leave a poor review. What isn't to like with such diversity, in story telling?

A great diverse collection of stories

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I am sorry but I found the selection of literary material very narrow and not my cup of tea.

Very narrow selection of stories

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Having a robot voice read the introduction is disgusting. How can anyone concentrate with such hideous and INHUMAN delivery? Stories and authors are great, but this cheap and lazy intro really is awful!

Is this a robot voice doing the introduction?

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