This week, The New Yorker publishes its 20 Under 40 issue, in which the magazine presents the twenty young fiction writers our editors believe “are or will be key to their generation.” In a Comment in the current issue, the editors explain that they began the process by looking back “at a similar issue that we published, in 1999, titled ‘The Future of American Fiction.’ ” You, too, can look back at that issue, and read Bill Buford’s introductory Comment before perusing the stories themselves. (Five of the pieces in that issue were excerpted and published in full in subsequent issues.)
“I CAN SPEAK!TM,” by George Saunders
“Asset,” by David Foster Wallace
“The Toughest Indian in the World,” by Sherman Alexie
“Hawaiian Night,” by Rick Moody
“Raft in Water, Floating,” by A. M. Homes
“The Local Production of Cinderella,” by Allegra Goodman
“The Saviors,” by William T. Vollmann
“Party of One,” by Antonya Nelson
“The Volunteers,” by Chang-rae Lee
“The Hofzinser Club,” by Michael Chabon
“Vins Fins,” by Ethan Canin
“An Actor Prepares,” by Donald Antrim
“The Wide Sea,” by Tony Earley
“The Oracular Vulva,” by Jeffrey Eugenides
“Otra Vida, Otra Vez,” by Junot Díaz
“The Failure,” by Jonathan Franzen
“The Book of the Dead,” by Edwidge Danticat
“The Third and Final Continent,” by Jhumpa Lahiri
“Peep Show,” by Nathan Englander
“Issues I Dealt With in Therapy,” by Matthew Klam _
The stories—and the complete archives of The New Yorker, back to 1925—are available to subscribers. Non-subscribers can purchase the individual issue.
Any favorite New Yorker articles come to mind? Send us an e-mail.
