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The Best American Magazine Writing 2020 brings together outstanding writing from in-depth reporting to incisive criticism. It features extraordinary globe-spanning journalism, including Sarah A. Topol on the genocide against the Rohingya (New York Times Magazine) and Erika Fry on the unintended consequences of a dengue fever vaccine (Fortune). In “India: Intimations of an Ending,” Arundhati Roy excoriates the increasing authoritarianism under Modi (The Nation in partnership with Type Media Center). A Q&A with Pamela Colloff accompanies her piece detailing 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 Tolentino’s cultural commentary (New Yorker) and Ligaya Mishan’s columns on food and culture (T: The New York Times Style Magazine). Jordan Kisner visits a Martha Washington–themed debutante ball for The Believer, alongside a discussion with the magazine’s editor in chief, Joshua Wolf Shenk. Columns by s.e. smith consider disability (Catapult), and the DeafBlind poet John Lee Clark writes about art he can touch (Poetry). The anthology features excerpts from major projects that challenge American certitudes: the Washington Post Magazine’s “Prison” issue, detailing the scope of mass incarceration, and the New York Times Magazine’s “The 1619 Project,” which recenters the nation’s history around slavery and its legacies.