It is 1944, and war has taken the men in Nazi-controlled Austria to the front line. For thirteen-year-old Ursula Hildesheim, life in the village of Felddorf remains almost as it was: bullied by her schoolmates, enlisted in endless chores by her mother and sister, thieving, and running wild with her adored older brother, Anton. But then Russian prisoners escape from the local concentration camp, her mother starts an affair with a married man, her only...

Presents an anthology of the best literary essays published in the past year, selected from American periodicals.