The Best American Short Stories 2026

A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestseller Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer. The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. Viet Thanh Nguyen—Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author of The Sympathizer—selects twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published this year.

Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and many other awards. His other books include a sequel, The Committed, and the bestselling short story collection The Refugees. Other works are Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War and A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial, as well as the children's books Chicken of the Sea and Simone. His last book was To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other.