The Best American Essays 2020

A collection of the year’s best essays selected by André Aciman, author of the worldwide bestseller Call Me by Your Name.

“An essay is the child of uncertainty,” André Aciman contends in his introduction to The Best American Essays 2020. “The struggle to write what one hopes is entirely true, and the long incubation every piece of writing requires of a writer who is thinking difficult thoughts, are what ultimately give the writing its depth, its magnitude, its grace.” The essays Aciman selected center on people facing moments of deep uncertainty, searching for a greater truth. From a Black father’s confrontation of his son’s illness, to a divorcée’s transcendent experience with strangers, to a bartender grieving the tragic loss of a friend, these stories are a master class not just in essay writing but in empathy, artfully imbuing moments of hardship with understanding and that elusive grace.

The Best American 2020 Essays includes: RABIH ALAMEDDINE • BARBARA EHRENREICH • LESLIE JAMISON • JAMAICA KINCAID • ALEX MARZANO-LESNEVICH • A. O. SCOTT • JERALD WALKER • STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS and others