The Best Short Stories 2022

The prestigious annual story anthology includes prize-winning stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Lorrie Moore, Olga Tokarczuk, Joseph O’Neill, and Samanta Schweblin.

Continuing a century-long tradition of cutting-edge literary excellence, this year’s edition contains twenty prizewinning stories chosen from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year. Guest editor Valeria Luiselli has brought her own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and emerging voices and including stories in translation from Bengali, Greek, Hebrew, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, and Spanish. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Luiselli, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction. AN ANCHOR BOOKS ORIGINAL.

THE WINNING STORIES:

“Screen Time,” by Alejandro Zambra,

translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell

“The Wolves of Circassia,” by Daniel Mason

“Mercedes’s Special Talent,” by Tere Dávila,

translated from the Spanish by Rebecca Hanssens-Reed

“Rainbows,” by Joseph O’Neill

“A Way with Bea,” by Shanteka Sigers

“Seams,” by Olga Tokarczuk,

translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft

“The Little Widow from the Capital,” by Yohanca Delgado

“Lemonade,” by Eshkol Nevo,

translated from the Hebrew by Sondra Silverston

“Breastmilk,” by ‘Pemi Aguda

“The Old Man of Kusumpur,” by Amar Mitra,

translated from the Bengali by Anish Gupta

“Where They Always Meet,” by Christos Ikonomou,

translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich

“Fish Stories,” by Janika Oza

“Horse Soup,” by Vladimir Sorokin,

translated from the Russian by Max Lawton

“Clean Teen,” by Francisco González

“Dengue Boy,” by Michel Nieva,

translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer

“Zikora,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Apples,” by Gunnhild Øyehaug,

translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson

“Warp and Weft,” by David Ryan

“Face Time,” by Lorrie Moore

“An Unlucky Man,” by Samanta Schweblin,

translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell