Best American Essays 2026

M. Gessen is the author of twelve books, including the National Book Award–winning The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia and The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. An Opinion columnist for The New York Times, and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Opinion Writing, as well as Guggenheim and Carnegie fellowships, Gessen teaches at Bard College and lives in New York City. Kim Dana Kupperman is the author of the award-winning essay collection I Just Lately Started Buying Wings: Missives from the Other Side of Silence; a memoir, The Last of Her; and a historical novel, Six Thousand Miles to Home. She is the editor of You: An Anthology of Essays Devoted to the Second Person and the founding editor of Welcome Table Press, whose mission is to publish and celebrate the essay, in all its forms.

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