Ann Charters’s anthology collects eighty short stories, including new fiction and neglected classics by authors such as Sherman Alexie, Anton Chekhov, Lydia Davis, Junot Díaz, Louise Erdrich, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Denis Johnson, Clarice Lispector, Marjane Satrapi, and Alice Walker. A distinctive innovation of the anthologies is the “Commentaries” section, which in this ninth edition consists of in-depth essays and discussions by the authors themselves, providing insight into the stories, historical and biographical contexts, and the craft of fiction.
