Here are seven reasons why you should read “The Twenty-seventh Man,” which you can find in 1. A minor bureaucratic error leads an unpublished writer (the 27th) to find his readership seconds before his death.

3. Englander illustrates the obsessive passion of writers. The 27th man composes a story in his mind, which he completes and recounts to his colleagues only moments before their execution.

5. Englander is a pre-modernist (my term). He’s a good storyteller whose prose is ample, and characters deeply sympathetic.

7. Englander knows his history and he knows people. In “The Twenty-seventh Man,” he shows the transcendent power of art and humanity in the face of evil and extreme ignorance.