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Twenty unforgettable stories--the best of the year--by celebrated writers as well as new and emerging voices. he winning stories evoke lives both near and distant, in settings ranging from Afghanistan and Paraguay to Japan and Ireland, and feature an engaging array of characters.

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The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018 contains twenty prize-winning stories chosen from thousands published in literary magazines over the previous year. The winning stories come from a mix of established writers and emerging voices, and are uniformly breathtaking. They are accompanied by essays from the eminent jurors on their favorites, observations from the winning writers on what inspired their stories, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction.

"The Tomb of Wrestling," Jo Ann Beard, Tin House
"Counterblast," Marjorie Celona, The Southern Review
"Nayla," Youmna Chlala, Prairie Schooner
"Lucky Dragon," Viet Dinh, Ploughshares
"Stop ´n´ Go," Michael Parker, New England Review
"Past Perfect Continuous," Dounia Choukri, Chicago Quarterly Review
"Inversion of Marcia," Thomas Bolt, n+1
"Nights in Logar," Jamil Jan Kochai, A Public Space
"How We Eat," Mark Jude Poirier, Epoch
"Deaf and Blind," Lara Vapnyar, The New Yorker
"Why Were They Throwing Bricks?," Jenny Zhang, n+1
"An Amount of Discretion," Lauren Alwan, The Southern Review
"Queen Elizabeth," Brad Felver, One Story
"The Stamp Collector," Dave King, Fence
"More or Less Like a Man," Michael Powers, The Threepenny Review
"The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies," Jo Lloyd, Zoetrope
"Up Here," Tristan Hughes, Ploughshares
"The Houses That Are Left Behind," Brenda Walker, The Kenyon Review
"We Keep Them Anyway," Stephanie A. Vega, The Threepenny Review
"Solstice," Anne Enright, The New Yorker

Prize Jury for 2018: Fiona McFarlane, Ottessa Moshfegh, Elizabeth Tallent

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"Widely regarded as the nation´s most prestigious awards for short fiction." --The Atlantic Monthly

"This year´s twenty O. Henry Prize Stories place the poetic qualities of the short story on full display." --The New Criterion

"The latest installment of the storied short fiction prize volume . . . [is] a strong collection of first-rate work without a false note. Essential for students of the form." --Kirkus Reviews

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Laura Furman, series editor of The O. Henry Prize Stories since 2003, is the winner of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts for her fiction. The author of several books, including the story collection The Mother Who Stayed, she taught writing for many years at the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Central Texas.

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