Shearlets emerged in recent years among the most successful frameworks for the efficient representation of multidimensional data. Indeed, after it was recognized that traditional multiscale methods are not very efficient at capturing edges and other anisotropic features which frequently dominate multidimensional phenomena, several methods were introduced to overcome their limitations. The shearlet representation stands out since it offers a unique combinations of some highly desirable properties: it has a single or finite set of generating functions, it provides optimally sparse representations for a large class of multidimensional data, it is possible to use compactly supported analyzing functions, it has fast algorithmic implementations and it allows a unified treatment of the continuum and digital realms. In this chapter, we present a self-contained overview of the main results concerning the theory and applications of shearlets.