Best Debut Short Stories 2024

The essential annual guide to the newest voices in literature, selected by Sindya Bhanoo, Sidik Fofana, and Ayşegül Savaş

Best Debut Short Stories celebrates the most promising short story writers today. Selected by a panel of distinguished judges, these twelve stories are the 2024 winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes outstanding debuts published in literary magazines.Sindya Bhanoo is the author of the story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere, which won the Oregon Book Award, the New American Voices Award and the Writers League of Texas Award. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, New England Review, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere.

Ayşegül Savaş is the author of the acclaimed novels Walking on the Ceiling and White on White. Her work has been translated into seven languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, and elsewhere.

Sidik Fofana is the author of the story collection Stories from the Tenants Downstairs. His work has appeared in the Sewanee Review and Granta. He was named a fellow at the Center for Fiction in 2018.