"The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016 gathers twenty of the best short stories of the year, selected from thousands published in literary magazines. The winning stories range in setting from Japan at the outset of World War II to a remote cabin in the woods of Wyoming, and the characters that inhabit them range from a misanthropic survivor of an apocalyptic flood to a unicorn hidden in a suburban house. Whether fantastical or realistic, gothic or lyrical, the stories here are uniformly breathtaking. They are accompanied by the editor's introduction, essays from the eminent jurors on their favorites, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines." -- Back cover

Irises / Elizabeth Genovise -- Mongerji letters / Geetha Iyer -- Narrator / Elizabeth Tallent -- Bonus baby / Joe Donnelly -- Divergence / David H. Lynn -- A single composition / Shruti Swamy -- Storm windows / Charles Haverty -- Train to Harbin / Asako Serizawa -- Dismemberment / Wendell Berry -- Exit zero / Marie-Helene Bertino -- Cigarettes / Sam Savage -- Temples / Adrienne Celt -- Safety / Lydia Fitzpatrick -- Bounty / Diane Cook -- A single deliberate thing / Zebbie Watson -- Crabapple tree / Robert Coover -- Winter / Frederic Tuten -- They were awake / Rebecca Evanhoe -- Slumming / Ottessa Moshfegh -- Happiness / Ron Carlson -- Reading The O. Henry Prize Stories: the jurors on their favorites -- Writing The O. Henry Prize Stories: the writers on their work