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Awards & Praise

Awards

2022, Boston Review essay “Pleasure and Justice” by Becca Rothfeld is a finalist for Washington Monthly’s Kukula Award for Nonfiction Writing

2022, Boston Review essays “Why I Provide Abortions” by Christine Henneberg, “Imagine the Worst” by Oded Na’aman, and “The Millions” by Deborah Taffa are cited as Notable Essays, and the issue Uncertainty is cited as a Notable Special Issue, in The Best American Essays 2022, edited by Alexander Chee and Robert Atwan

2021, Boston Review essay “Getting to Freedom City” by Robin D. G. Kelley is cited as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2021, edited by Kathryn Schulz and Robert Atwan

2020, Boston Review issue On Anger is selected by The New Yorker as one of the best books of the year

2020, Boston Review essay “Technology Can’t Fix Algorithmic Injustice” by Annette Zimmermann, Elena Di Rosa, and Hochan Kim wins The Hasting Center’s Award for an Early Career Essay

2020, Boston Review essay “Walt Whitman’s Boys” by Jeremy Lybarger is cited as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2020, edited by André Aciman and Robert Atwan

2019, Boston Review essay “Guns in the Family” by Walter Johnson is cited as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2019, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Robert Atwan

2018, Boston Review essay “Saving Orwell” by Peter Ross is cited as a Notable Essay, and the issue Global Dystopias edited by Junot Díaz is cited as a Notable Special Issue, in The Best American Essays 2018, edited by Hilton Als and Robert Atwan

2017, Boston Review essay “Pigs” by Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey is cited as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2017, edited by Leslie Jamison and Robert Atwan

2016, Boston Review essays “The Logic of Effective Altruism” by Peter Singer“The Lure of Luxury” by Paul Bloom, and “The Desire to Know” by Steven Shapin are cited as Notable Essays in The Best American Essays 2016, edited by Jonathan Franzen and Robert Atwan

2015, Boston Review  essays “Rethinking Privacy” by William H. Simon and “Mortal Risks” by Oded Na’aman are cited as Notable Essays in The Best American Essays 2015, edited by Ariel Levy and Robert Atwan

2014, Boston Review  essays “Picking Pebbles” by Deborah Stone and “On Being an Octopus” by Peter Godfrey-Smith are cited as Notable Essays in The Best American Essays 2014, edited by John Jeremiah Sullivan and Robert Atwan

2014, Boston Review essay “Who Shot Valerie Finley?” by Beth Schwartzapfel is named a runner-up for the John Jay/H. F. Guggenheim Prize for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting

2013, Boston Review  essay “War Is Betrayal” by Chris Hedges is cited as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2013, edited by Cherly Strayed and Robert Atwan

2012, Boston Review  essay “Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal” by Junot Díaz is cited as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2012, edited by David Brooks and Robert Atwan

2011, Boston Review  short story “Hitting Budapest” by NoViolet Bulawayo wins the Caine Prize

2010, UTNE Independent Press Award for Best Writing

2010, Boston Review  essay “A Death in Texas” by Tom Barry is named a finalist for the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) National Magazine Award for Public Interest

Praise

 “Publishing diverse voices that embrace debate and encourage impatience with convention, Boston Review is an indispensable pillar of the public sphere.”

Alondra NelsonDeputy Director for Science and Society in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, President of the Social Science Research Council

“When it comes to publishing fresh and generative ideas, Boston Review has no peer.”

—Robin D. G. Kelley, Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at the University of California, Los Angeles

Boston Review is so good right now.”

Naomi Klein, activist and New York Times best-selling author

“I love Boston Review for being unfailingly smart, perceptive, and unexpected.”

Elizabeth BruenigWashington Post

Boston Review cuts out the noise, the posturing, and the hysteria and engages ideas with intelligence and humanity. In other words, it’s a democratic place for a reading public.”

Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize–winning author

Boston Review has done more than its share to help set the standard for public discourse.”

Victor NavaskyThe Nation

“Let mainstream publications give in to the perceived demand for bite-sized news; Boston Review provides the exquisite main course.”

UTNE award citation for Best Writing, 2010

“In our swamp of media sensationalism and group-speak, Boston Review stands out as a bold voice for reason and argument, one of the very, very few places that offer intelligence, integrity, and variety.”

Martha Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago

Boston Review’s approach to poetry is truly unique and magnificent. . . . I thank you dearly every time I open your pages.”

Jorie Graham, chancellor of the American Academy of Poets and MacArthur Fellow 

Boston Review is one of the few places today where serious discussion of our political alternatives is flourishing. An antidote to complacence and conventional wisdom, it offers hope of revitalizing American political debate.”

Michael Sandel, author of Democracy’s Discontent 

Boston Review is a place where American prose feels exact and alive. It is one of the three or four American journals that makes me feel we have a culture.”

Robert Hass, Poet Laureate of the United States, 1995–97

Boston Review offers some of the most penetrating and challenging cultural commentary, political discussion, and social analysis to be found anywhere in the United States. It is a must read.”

Randall Kennedy, author of Race, Crime, and the Law 

“America is a big country, and Boston Review is one of the two or three best intellectual and political publications we have.”

Charles Simić, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet

Boston Review operates at a level of literacy and responsibility which is all too rare in our time.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, author of The Good Society 

Boston Review is a feast of the mind, at once intellectually provocative, literary, and unpretentious.”

Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams 

“Always challenging, always provocativeBoston Review brings a fresh and insightful perspective to the literature and politics of a multicultural age.”

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., general editor of The Norton Anthology of African American Literature

Boston Review is both lively and serious about ideas, politics, and the arts. It manages to convey the sense that there are things to discuss, and the discussion is actually there.”

Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate in Economics 

Boston Review has an almost ferocious commitment to issues—not just debating them, but exploring their root systems. Free-spoken, intelligent, and 180 degrees from the soundbite mentality that governs most writing on controversial subjects.”

Sven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies 

Boston Review is an outstanding magazine.”

David Lehman, series editor of The Best American Poetry 

Boston Review is sustenance for intelligent life on Earth. It is remarkable for the range and quality of its fare, from poetry to philosophy, somehow never losing touch with the practical political concerns that are the spark of its life.”

Frank I. Michelman, author of Brennan and Democracy 

“The most stimulating feature, to me, is the collection of responses from thinkers which follows a controversial article. These responses illuminate all facets of an argument and create active thought in the reader. There can be no higher result, in this era of passive consumption.”

Helen Vendler, author of The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Boston Review is a jewel; it contains serious discussion at the highest level of pressing issues in economics, politics, and political philosophy, as well as of art and literature. Don’t miss it!”

John Rawls, author of A Theory of Justice 

Boston Review is one of a kind. It provides a thoughtful forum for in-depth (but highly readable) debate on new directions.”

Gar Alperovitz, President of the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives and author of Atomic Diplomacy

“I often come to magazine reading in search of voices that I will long to hear in longer form, and whose expertise will help me think beyond the news of the day—above the tree line. I solidly count on Boston Review for just that kind of perspective.”

Margo Beth Fleming, literary agent at Brockman, Inc

We are teaming up this spring to offer a year of both magazines.

Use code DISSENT when you purchase a print BR membership.

Act fast: offer ends March 31!

Use code DISSENT when you purchase a print BR membership. Offer ends March 31.