"Jamison has done an exceptional job curating this volume, selecting essayists who are diverse in ideas and experiences, and essays that are challenging, passionate, sobering, and clever."
--Publishers Weekly

“The essay is political—and politically useful, by which I mean humanizing and provocative—because of its commitment to nuance, its explorations of contingency, its spirit of unrest, its glee at overturned assumptions; because of the double helix of awe and distrust—faith and doubt—that structures its DNA,” writes guest editor Leslie Jamison in her introduction. From the Iraqi desert to an East Jerusalem refugee camp, from the beginnings of the universe to the aftermath of a suicide attempt, the genetic makeup of the eclectic and electric selections in The Best American Essays 2017 “thrill toward complexity.”
 
The Best American Essays 2017 includes
RACHEL KAADZI GHANSAH, LAWRENCE JACKSON,
 RACHEL KUSHNER, ALAN LIGHTMAN, BERNARD FARAI MATAMBO,
WESLEY MORRIS, HEATHER SELLERS, ANDREA STUART
and others