In her introduction to this yearâs The Best American Essays, guest editor Vivian Gornick states that her selections âcontribute materially to the long and honorable history of the personal essay by way of the value they place on lived experience.â Provocative, daring, and honest at a time when many writers are deliberately silencing themselves in the face of authoritarian and populist censorship movements, the twenty-one essays collected here reflect their authorsâ unapologetic observations of the world around them. From an inmate struggling to find purpose during his prison sentence to a doctor coping with the unpredictable nature of her patient, to a widow wishing for just a little more time with her late husband, these narrativesâand the others featured in this anthologyâcelebrate the endurance of the human spirit.
The Best American Essays 2023 includes Ciara Alfaro âą Jillian Barnet âą Sylvie Baumgartel âą Eric Borsuk âą Chris Dennis âą Xujun Eberlein âą Sandra Hager Eliason âą George Estreich âą Merrill Joan Gerber âą Debra Gwartney âą Edward Hoagland âą Laura Kipnis âą Phillip Lopate âą Celeste Marcus âą Sam Meekings âą Sigrid Nunez âą Kathryn Schulz âą Anthony Siegel âą Scott Spencer âą Angelique Stevens âą David Treuer