The Best American Magazine Writing 2020

The Best American Magazine Writing 2020 brings together outstanding writing, from in-depth reporting to incisive criticism. The anthology features excerpts from major projects that challenge American certitudes: the Washington Post Magazines Prison issue, detailing the scope of mass incarceration, and the New York Times Magazines The 1619 Project, which recenters the nations history around slavery and its legacies. It includes extraordinary globe-spanning journalism, including pieces on the genocide against the Rohingya (New York Times Magazine) and the unintended consequences of a dengue fever vaccine (Fortune). Pamela Colloff details prosecutors reliance on an untrustworthy jailhouse informant (New York Times Magazine in partnership with ProPublica), and a ProPublica series investigates the disaster that befell the USS Fitzgerald. The anthology showcases the work of remarkable stylists, including Jia Tolentinos cultural commentary (New Yorker) and Ligaya Mishans columns on food and culture (T: The New York Times Style Magazine). Columns by s.e. smith consider disability (Catapult), and the DeafBlind poet John Lee Clark writes about art he can touch (Poetry). Jordan Kisner visits a Martha Washingtonthemed debutante ball in Texas near the Mexican border for The Believer, and Jacob Baynham offers a moving portrait of his father-in-law (Georgia Review). Arundhati Roy excoriates the increasing authoritarianism of Modis India (The Nation in partnership with Type Media Center). The anthology concludes with Jonathan Escofferys short story of homesickness for Jamaica, Under the Ackee Tree (Paris Review).