Afterlives: The Year’s Best Death Fiction 2023
Curated By Vajra Chandrasekera

Death is an integral part of life, waiting on the other side for each of us. Writers, however, have no need to wait. They can cross the boundary as easily as stepping from one room to another. These eighteen stories from 2023 will take you into that room and beyond. From death’s chamber to the hood of a Camaro, from quiet woods to shrieking space. Death awaits. Let us go and meet it.
Isabel J. Kim | Tehnuka | Michael Roch | Eugenia Triantafyllou
Will McMahon | Bendi Barrett | Diana Dima | Eden Royce
B. Pladek | Avra Margariti |EC Dorgan | Gabrielle Emem Harry
Samir Sirk Morató | M. L. Krishnan | Jill Tew | Osahon Ize-Iyamu
Sydney Paige Guerrero | J.A.W. McCarthy
Cover by: Inkshark
Full Table of Contents:
Day Ten Thousand, by Isabel J. Kim
Loving Bone Girl, by Tehnuka
The Gates of Lanvil, Michael Roch, translated by Karine Saint Jacques
Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge, by Eugenia Triantafyllou
Notes on the Burning Place, by Will McMahon
The Bone Meal Corps, by Bendi Barrett
Pomegranate Anatomy, by Diana Dima
Don’t You Weep, by Eden Royce
Spring Woods Spring, by B. Pladek
Death Comes for the Sworn Virgins, by Avra Margariti
Buffalo Gothic, by EC Dorgan
A Name Is A Plea and a Prophecy, by Gabrielle Emem Harry
Brainworms, by Samir Sirk Morató
Interstate Mohinis, by M. L. Krishnan
I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm, by Jill Tew
Great Things of Which to Speak Of by, Osahon Ize-Iyamu
Liwani by, Sydney Paige Guerrero
All the Dead Astronauts, by J.A.W. McCarthy
Book Info
Publisher: Psychopomp
Length: 239 pages
ISBN: 979-8-89116-006-4
Price: $19.99 (print), $5.99 (ebook )
About Vajra Chandrasekera
Vajra Chandrasekera is from Colombo, Sri Lanka. His debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors won the Locus, Nebula, and Crawford awards, and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2023. His second novel Rakesfall is out now. His short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction has appeared in Analog, West Branch, and The Los Angeles Times, among others. He has worked as an editor for Strange Horizons and Afterlives: The Year’s Best Death Stories, and as a judge for the Dream Foundry Writing Contest and the Salam Award. He is online at vajra.me and probably on whatever social media still exists at the time you’re reading this.
