Fiction by Joan Silber, the author of “Mercy” and “Improvement”: It horrified me to be from a species that did such things, over and over, but what good did my horror do?
Best New Yorker Fiction
The New Yorker's Fiction section has published short stories from the world's finest writers since 1925. This collection represents the most memorable works from nearly a century of literary excellence.
994 picks · 1925–2025
Top authors: S. J. Perelman (34), Mavis Gallant (22), John Updike (20)
Fiction by Daniyal Mueenuddin, the author of “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders” and “This Is Where the Serpent Lives”: Bayazid had never quite given up the fantasy he nurtured in boyhood, of discovering himself a child of some minister or prince.
Fiction by Lauren Groff, the author of “Fates and Furies” and “The Vaster Wilds”: I saw someone coming toward me through the twilight on the road ahead, a skinny man in a glowing white shirt, and dread rushed into me.
Fiction by Rivka Galchen, the author of “Atmospheric Disturbances” and “Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch”: I was raised to believe that no human is inherently evil, that evil is a surface disturbance caused by fear, misunderstanding, or ignorance. I’m now reconsidering.
Fiction by Rachel Cusk, the author of “Outline,” “Transit,” and “Kudos”: Reality became malleable, was always giving way and changing its rules.
Fiction by Miriam Toews, the author of “Women Talking” and “Fight Night”: He asked me if I wanted to ride with him, and I said no. He repeated that back to me. He said, No? Or . . . yes?
Fiction by Kiran Desai, the author of “The Inheritance of Loss” and “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny”: Look, Sunny said, however progressive my mother is, she is an Indian woman from another generation. Do you really think I can tell her that we sleep in the same bed?
Fiction by Zadie Smith, the author of “The Fraud” and “Swing Time”: She could sit on a bench in Europe completely unmolested, without a single human being saying a word to her, until the sun fell out of the sky.
Yiyun Li ·
Fiction by Yiyun Li, the author of “Things in Nature Merely Grow” and “The Book of Goose”: And here sat Maureen, who had no one else to send flowers to as sweet revenge. And here sat Lilian, who had thought that little in life could surprise her anymore.
Fiction by Jim Shepard, the author of “The Book of Aron” and “The World to Come”: It is possible I’m too flexible for virtue and too virtuous for villainy.
Fiction by the Nobel Prize winner Jon Fosse: I need to open the door now, it’s not the end of the world, it’s just that it’s been such a long time since anyone’s knocked on my door.
Fiction by Lillian Fishman, the author of “Acts of Service”: No thought was so devastating to Prima as the thought that she was ascribing wisdom and seriousness to something that would turn out to be stupid.
Fiction by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, the author of “When Skateboards Will Be Free” and “American Estrangement”: This is the way infestations work: first gradually and then all at once. He will never be able to eradicate. He can only hope to contain.
Yiyun Li ·
Fiction by Yiyun Li, the author of “The Book of Goose,” “Wednesday’s Child,” and “Things in Nature Merely Grow”: It’s astonishing, Lilian often thought, that people feel this urge to talk about themselves with a stranger.
Fiction by Joseph O’Neill, the author of “Netherland”: Between the ages of eighteen and fifty-four, Nadia does not for a single moment not have an admirer or a boyfriend or a better half. Then her husband disappears forever.
Fiction by the Argentinean writer Samanta Schweblin, author of “Fever Dream”: She’d seen enough movies to know that this was the moment when she needed to brandish the gun and threaten the man.
Début fiction by Kanak Kapur: First, they would consult the family astrologer, he said, and only if the man approved of the match would Dev be allowed to go through with the proposal.
Fiction by Shuang Xuetao: So you get on well? he said. You could say that, I said. You could say that, for a while now, she’s been my only reason to go on living.
Fiction by Joshua Cohen, the author of “The Netanyahus”: You’re my famous cousin, the guy who wrote the book. Their little Jewish writer guy—they’ll trust you.
Fiction by Lore Segal, the author of “Other People’s Houses,” “Her First American,” and “Ladies’ Lunch and Other Stories.”
Fiction by Donald Barthelme: My wife has been wanting a dog for a long time. I have had to be the one to tell her that she couldn’t have it. But now the baby wants a dog, my wife says.
Fiction by André Alexis: He had promised to love her until they were in their nineties and fit only for lying in each other’s arms, staring happily at the moon and listening to the kiskadees.
Fiction by David Means: What matters is that a few weeks later the two of them found him on the corner of Fifty-third and Woodlawn, a street cat with matted black fur and a smear of white.
Fiction by Ben Lerner: “I started to narrate my choking to myself, as if transforming it into a story would keep me connected to a future in which I might tell it.”
Fiction by Allan Gurganus: “The doctor was soon the only person brave or fool enough to duck under the orange quarantine ropes, ignoring warning signs he himself had nailed to the doors of those farmhouses worst hit.”
A classic short story by John Cheever, chronicling an apartment-building elevator operator’s Christmas Day at work.
Fiction, from 1949: “Seen through the carefully wiped lenses of time, the beauty of her face is as near as ever and as glowing.”
An account of the last days of Emma Boynton, an eccentric cousin of the writer's grandmother. She was a distinguishes old lady who had taught Greek and…
Fiction, from 1949: “The noise of the tree was worse than any known human noise, because of that frightening, toneless, throatless quality.”
The writer deplores the devices used by authors to give a foreign flavor to their books. Sometimes the characters who are foreign speak with an accent …
The writer thinks about his first trip to Europe in 1927, and rereads a best seller of that time: "The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars" by Maurice Dekobra. …
Cahill, a 40 year old college philosophy teacher, arrives home at 1 AM and finds a message to call Joe Reeves, a colleague and friend of his. Since it is …
A meeting of all distinguished individuals who have endorsed products in advertisements in 1948 is called. As each member is mentioned the product he …
The writer received, as a gift, a copy of "Esar's Comic Dictionary" which has turned him into an unpleasant cynic. He quotes sample definitions from …
Memories of White Russia during the writer's youth. He recalls reenacting, with his cousin, the Wild West fiction of Capt. Mayne Reid, an American …
As a high school senior in the Shanghai American School the writer was the principal for one day - Student Government Day. He was allowed to exercise the …
A list of the cliches used by tabloid newspaper writers recounting the news of murder, love, and other events of violence.
The writer recalls giving a lecture at a Women's City Club in Texas. Her introduction to the audience is delayed by numerous interruptions. By the time…
Fiction, from 1948: “The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions; most of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around.”
Short story about an aged Russian couple going to pay their insane son a visit on his birthday.
Fiction by Jean Stafford, from 1948: “If the sight of someone so peripheral, so uninvolving as Alfred Eisenburg could scare her so badly, what would a cocktail party do?”
A young man, recently returned from the Army goes to Florida with his wife. His wife has a telephone conversation with her mother during which the mother …
When the author's father died his mother was inconsolable with grief - a passionate woman who had lost her lover. Her two sons fetched her old girlhood…
Jack Lorey knew Joan Harris from their home town in Ohio. They met when they both came to New York. This is the story of how Joan, who always appeared …
A young mother wheels her baby home in the late afternoon. Then she gets herself and dinner ready for a couple of guests, while her husband prepares …
Terry, aged five, adores Madge his aunt, who promises to take him to England when she marries Mr. Walker. He waits and waits for this to happen. Finally, …
A guest at a cocktail party is introduced to the editor of a literary review, Mr. Peifer. They get into an involved conversation regarding middle-aged …
A short story, from 1946. A prep-school boy, home in N.Y. on vacation, rebels against boys' schools, and against life in general. He walks out on his girl when she refuses to …
Benny Greenspan puts over a good deal for his client, Clyde Marshall, who had formerly been a drunk but was now reformed.
Inspired by the Fruit-of-the-Month Club, which sends a different fruit each month to its members, a man decides there ought to be a service which sends out…
Monte Carlo. The accordion player who performed lying down. He was also a ballet enthusiast and knew most of the members of the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe. …
Fiction, from 1945: Now I know I just didn’t have sense enough to see the baby had talent.
Monologue. Attorney Edgar D. Moss, representing Harriet Boykin who had been injured in tripping on a hole in the linoleum at the Liberty Bell Cafeteria. …
Mrs. Semplon's new all-in-one kitchen, all electrified and automatic. The only things she couldn't put into the dish washing machine were highball …
On Armand Brigaud's "Killers on Safari", a story which appeared in a pulp magazine called "Jungle Stories."
Fiction, from 1944: Mrs. Garden’s lips trembled and she put her hand up to her mouth. “I suppose everyone gets desperate sometimes,” she said.
Fiction, from 1944: “Emily had known for some time who was taking the things, but it was only tonight that she had decided what to do.”
Fiction, from 1944: “Doctor,” she said, “how do people tell if they’re going crazy?”
Barracks conversation between Sergeant Whitejack from North Carolina, a young Greek-American who had been on missions over Greece, and a young boy from …
France: Josephine, the sixteen-year-old nursery maid and her escapades; her affairs with the local men and her shooting of a sergeant who, she said, …
The author’s début short story in The New Yorker, about two women who encounter a surprising scene over their morning coffee at a hotel restaurant.
Fiction, from 1944: “I guess we know about as much about Bob as you do by now,” Helen said.
Fiction, from 1943: “There’s plenty wrong,” the blind man said. “When people steal from a guy that doesn’t know what’s going on, there’s plenty wrong.”
Fiction, from 1943: Mrs. Lennon took the envelope and the papers and held them out to Harriet. “Will you read them or shall I?” she asked kindly.
Fiction, from 1943: His eyes were closed and he seemed barely able, with her help, to stand on his feet.
Fiction, from 1943: Mrs. Wilson was just taking the gingerbread out of the oven when she heard Johnny outside talking to someone.
Descriptions of restaurants on stray match covers; places we are not likely to see for some time because of the tire shortage. Mentions Chateau de Jour, …
A mother takes her seventeen-year-old daughter to the home of her great-great-grandfather, now turned into a Museum by the Historical Society. The girl …
"How to take a bath" is a canvass made by the Harper's Bazaar of seven distinguished ladies-Maureen Orcott, Ina Claire, Doro thy Draper, Cornelia Otis …
Olav Sinding tells what has happened to Fru Gunderson who used to run a small tourist hotel where he had been in charge of entertainment. Fru Gunderson is …
Millie Osborn receives an invitation to spend a week with her cousin Margaret, who is well to do. The invitation is a godsend. It arrived just when she is …
Congressman George Holden Tinkhan is being sketched by a newspaper artist. He tells the young lady to be sure to put a great many extra ripples in his …
Tells about a little girl's unhappiness in her mother's absence, her distaste for her grandmother, her adoration of her father, and her sense that …
A young man hit upon an idea to solve the problem of getting gifts that he didn't want and decided to do something about it. His aunt and uncle who …
The experience of an amateur rider on a murderous horse, called "Murderess". She realizes the rider knows comparatively nothing about riding and takes full…
The peepies, it seems, are on the bum. Sixth Avenue at this writing is shrill with the keening of the penny arcade proprietors who have just concluded the …
There is more than a trace of kangaroo in Maruspial, the pewter platter cat. She strolls daintily about trying to catch your eye. If you do happend to look…
The country weekend is a sacred institution in England. No Londoner, if he can help himself, will be caught spending Saturday and Sunday in town.
My wife, as usual; got me into it. "Why, everybody here in Larchwood studies birds," she said. "All the worth-while people are in the Bird Club--we've …
Fiction, from 1929: “The pale young man eased himself carefully into the low chair, and rolled his head to the side, so that the cool chintz comforted his cheek and temple.”
Mrs. Monroe had had several cocktails before she arrived at Mrs. Armsby's tea, and she kept making odd statements that her husband had to try to cover …
Based on the old game of beaver. R ules for a game. Points are given for spotting suspects in tht Rothstein murder case.
Conversation between two theatre organists. They never use arrangements because they stifle imagination.
An anthropologist solves the difficulties men have in finding suitable mates by introducing polygyny and polyandry. The theory is worked out in detail. …
Fiction. Men around a fireplace in a London Club tell tales of bravery. One old man tells how he got lost in a New York Subway.
James Thurber’s humorous retelling of “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” (also known as “The Night Before Christmas”) in the style of Ernest Hemingway.
A classic short story by Dorothy Parker, in which a partygoer’s introduction to the guest of honor becomes a nervous attempt to deal with racism.
The woman with an apartment to sublet. I'm sure you'll find it awfully cool and pleasant here during August. I was here all last summer myself and …
The writer’s 1927 short story imagines that, for authors, all press is good press—especially if the Boston police declare one’s book obscene.