Is it safe to say that everyone gets burned out sometimes? At work, in relationships, and with life in general, there comes a time when change is necessary and inevitable.
A road map, a star, can guide us along with an image in our minds. Mind maps, vision boards, visualization, and meditation can help you reach and sustain the vibration to its manifestation. That's when miracles happen. I was. So much so that I'd rather fail at something new and exciting like writing and filmmaking than keep digging my grave.
How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self
This is a revolutionary approach to healing that harnesses the power of the self to produce lasting change.As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Nicole LePera often found herself frustrated by the limitations of traditional psychotherapy. Wanting more for her patients—and for herself—she began a journey to develop a united philosophy of mental healing.
This book can help you get a greater view into the habits of mind that keep you from getting what you want.
So can this one.
https://amzn.to/3vhDc7o How to Start a Business: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a Small Business from Business Plan to Scaling Up.
Back to setting your roadmap.
So you're probably wondering what the blog of Angela Terga is about. Well, it's a way of practicing the craft, creating an audience, starting a conversation, and visualizing the road, Feeling at ease and at peace instead of expectant and anxious which will set you off track requires vibrational work. That's what writing does for me.
When a writer at heart becomes a burnt-out teacher and traverses uncharted territory...,. The Blog of Angela Terga, titled "Memoirs of a Mad Teacher," tells the story of the leap of faith taken to have the opportunity to write novels and screenplays.
Recommending books hopes to incite discussion and trigger curiosity about the issues that matter most to building peace in this classroom called Earth. Those are the things to write about that make a difference. The teacher in me calls out.
Not only are these educational curated books but also a way of showing the path of an authorpreneur, a media creator, and filmmaker. It's a high slope to climb.
After several years of defining and setting up a writing and publishing services business, the horizon is still far away. Magic, however, can shorten the way. What may seem to many like sorcery or divine intervention is nothing more than the readiness of a pre-kindergartener.
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The Blog of Angela Terga, Memoirs of a Mad (burnt-out) Teacher hopes to offer facts and insightful information regarding the following categories and topics of interest:
i. Literaray Genres
Magical Realism/Scifi
Historical Fiction
Non Fiction - (Poetry, Biography, Memoirs, E-Books)
Children's Books
ii. Film & Television
Screenplays
Adaptations
Film Production
111. Purposeful Filmmaking, Writing & Publishing
Conscious Arts Media Productions
We intend to create awareness by drawing attention to the values of the organization: To create entertainment that positively nurtures the senses without relying on right vs. wrong or good versus bad duality and instead listen to each other.
This organization therefore supports the creation, production, and dissemination of artistic, literary, musical, visual, and graphic artists whose works convey a mesage of hope, peace, compassion, and inclusion.
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It was not difficult to create the entitiy with the help of Legal Zoom. Reading this manual also helps to clarify some points. But the most helpful YouTube video is this one.
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The first Blog category on the list is Magic Realism. This is the genre of T.A. Terga's books, Utopia, The Spiderwoman, Legends from the Future, Isabel III, and Max Finds a Rock, even "I am Sojourner Truth" and these Memoirs are all MR.
New Age Stories by Angela Terga @TAT Productions
Date: July 1, 2021 -
Who/where started Magical Realism?
What are the best magical realism stories of all times?
What is the importance of magical realism?
What are the elements of magical realism?
How is Magic Realism relevant today?
Read about the top magical realism books curated here to help enthusiasts and students capture the essence of this transgressive genre and its socio-political importance.
WHO FATHERED MAGICAL REALISM? A brief history…
Today, “magical realism” is much more than a coined phrase by Puerto Rican literary critic, Angel Flores, PhD, of Cornell University, in 1955. In his essay “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction,”[1] Flores notes that Spanish American writers seemed “preoccupied with staying rooted in reality” instead of flying off into fantastical worlds. Thus, the supernatural is ordinarily accepted into everyday life.
Flores is also known to propose renown author Jorge Luis Borges, from Argentina, to be the father of the genre with his book “Historia Universal de la Infamia (Universal History of Infamy)”[2]published in 1935.
However, the jury is still out on which author and which book of magical realism marks the eruption of the magical realist novel not just in Latin America but worldwide.
Should Borges be the one who gets the credit for fathering magical realism?
1935
According to Kirkus Review (published 1972), Borges goes straight to the “ambiguous equation of power, magic, and style,” characteristic of magical realists.
(See link belowto read Historia Universal de la Infamia by Jorge Luis Borges, for free).
Does Borges “supernaturalize” the ordinary (criminals in this case)? Is there a power struggle? A clash of classes, cultures, races, or ethnicities? Is time non-linear? Yes, yes, yes! But is he the seed?
There arose the controversy around who fathered and deserves to be the patriarch of the literary modality or stylized genre known as magical realism since the beginning of the 20th century.
The question of which author gave birth to “magic realism” -a term coined by German Art critic, Franz Roh, in 1925, is a ghost that shows up every time it’s called upon.
Who is be the Patriarch of Magical Realism?
1931
Was the first magical realism novel published in Venezuela? That would be surprising.
Arturo Uslar Pietri, an illustrious Venezuelan author, is one of the candidates for being the pop of the magical realism novel. He published The Red Lances in 1931. In this book, the reader follows the mythical exploits of Simon Bolivar’s revolutionary campaigns throughout Latin America.
One of the contenders to the title of father of magical realism wrote
“El mito es el reflejo de la realidad (Myth is the reflection of reality),”
in the foreword to his first book of magical realism. Alejo Carpentier,[3] a Cuban author of European descent, is considered the master of the genre. But the daddy? Maybe, maybe not. The only master? Of course not.
Then along came The Kingdom of this World, by Cuban-born Carpentier.
Published in 1949, The Kingdom of This World “supernaturalizes” the story of Haiti, before, during, and after its incredible revolution. This is also his second novel, the first one, Ecué-Yamba-O was published in 1933. Could a no0vel about the syncretism of the African gods in America possibly meet the criteria for magical realism? Download the pdf here for free.
1941
A 2017 Kirkus book review of The Kingdom of This World by Carpentier, sums up this magical realism classic as “a stirring and blood-soaked journey into a dark historical moment.”
Then, along came Marquez and blurred them all out.
Leading the polls is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the best-known magical realist. In his landmark book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, published in 1967, he is crowned with defining the socio-political saga of Latin America’s history.
1967
Translated into 44 languages and compared to the Iliad and the Aeneid, Marquez resolves the controversy of who is the patriarch of the magical realism novel by setting in stone the elements that comprise the genre’s current definition and giving way to a socio-political movement.[4]
However, in honor of Truth … the universal essence of magical realism existed before Latin America’s “lo real maravillloso” (a term used by Carpentier to differentiate Latin America from Europe’s magic realism as defined by Roh).
To be honest, many international authors who meet today’s accepted magical realism fiction genre definition, wrote and published books of magical realism before they dreamed of a term that would be called magic realism, which was ever coined by art critic Franz Roh in 1925.
Way before magical realism became a socio-political movement in Latin America during the decades of the 1960’s and 70’s, there was magical realism.
Way before the international doors of the Big Five publishers flung wide open to receive this category of artistic endeavor from writers of all ethnicities and geographic locations.
Way before all the other paternal candidates, there was Kafka. Had we looked beyond Kafka, we might find others, which only goes to show the universality of magical realism stories. The genre is natural to storytelling, in all languages and cultures.
rooted in reality
supernaturalizes any element
emphasizes a power struggle, a socio-economic or political critique.
nonlinearity is a key element - time is cyclical
1915
One must point out, that the novel Metamorphosis, by German author, Franz Kafka in which a man wakes up transformed into a nasty cockroach, contains all the magical realism literary elements outlined here and was published in 1915.
You can access Kafka’s incredibly poignant book and read Metamorphosis for free below.[5]
What’s the verdict? Is magical realism fatherless? A bastardly son?
No one talks about the mother of Magical Realism. If we were to probe within its genes, in Latin America we would find magical realism to be the fatherless son of a world ravaged by colonization. In its aftermath geographically grouped descendants of rapists and enslavers broke into war against each other’s concept of national identity and religion. In the Old World, as besieged by Kafka's narrative, an ordinary man's ife can be so insignificant and lacking in opportunity that he feels like a cockrroach.
WHAT MAKES MAGICAL REALISM DIFFERENT FROM SCIENCE FICTION GENRE?
Today, Magical Realism is a widely accepted genre under the wider umbrella of Science Fiction, interconnecting with transgressive fiction and historical fiction. Books of magical realism are set in everyday life anywhere on Earth. There are fantastical elements in the plot: A man with wings, it can rain for years, there may be magic directly used, there may be superpowers given to people, to name a few. But the supernatural element is matter of fact.
Every magical realism novel involves socio-political issues that play out as part of the plot.
In magical realism novels there is more diversity, different ethnicities and social classes are interacting. Time flows nonlinearly, perhaps cyclically. And we are called to participate in its multiple dimensions.
Five of the most important elements of the magical realism fiction genre are:
1. Realistic Setting – The supernatural realm blends with everyday life in a non-dualistic way. In any town, city, house, or space in which life happens to be. This is not a make-believe world. Magical realism is rooted in literary realism.
2. Fantastical/Supernatural Elements – these could be psychological or physical. For example, an old man could have wings, someone can turn into an animal, it can be phantasmagorical. The characters could experience telekinesis, telepathy, levitation, or metamorphosis naturally as part of their real life. And however magical, it is very real, and not questionable at all because it is marvelous reality, “lo real maravilloso,” as labeled by Alejo Carpentier, who gave the term a socio-political Latin American stamp.
3. Political Critique – Magical realism Is also grounded on politics and draws brings attention to social issues and political/military forces acting on society. They may give mystical interpretations to acts of horror and inequity committed by powerful entities against the populace who can only “supernaturalize” reality. For example, in Rushdie’s, Midnight Children, the British army opens fire into a multitude. The main character in Marquez’ El General No Tiene Quien le Escriba, Aureliano Buendia, a war veteran, never ceases to expect his retirement check in the mail. Magical realism serves to reflect the consequences of negligent and corrupt governments whose consequence mold society’s psyche. [6] [7] [8]
4. Hybridity[9] [10] - Magical realism includes different cultures, it has a multicultural approach, and layers of disparate cultural values and constructs. Indian-born Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children (1981) and Nigerian-born Ben Okri’s novel (1991) are perfect examples of literary hybridity. Inclusion is a more accepted term.
5. Metafiction – This literary element of magical realism refers to the role of the reader. Inside the story, the reader creates a story within a story and becomes self-conscious as she/he gets embroiled and invades the reader’s reality. [11]
Stay tuned for Part 2 of Magical Realism:
In the following Part 2 post we will share a smorgasbord of the best magical realism books have been curated by magical realism enthusiasts to give you a round-the-world sampling of the genre.
Magical realism is universal. Its importance lies in the creation of awareness and the expansion of compassion, tolerance, inclusion, diversity, and the supernatural spirit within life that evolves and resolves karma.
Every magical realist author on the list will represent a different part of the world. Their novels are bestsellers and they contain the elements of magical realism explained above: real-life settings, hybridity, the supernatural, and metafiction.
Warning! Reading any of these books may have a metafiction effect on readers. Symptoms include feelings of embroilment with socio-political ideals and issues in a holistic way, that is through diverse perspectives and ethnicities.
Bibliography
[1] Flores, Angel. “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction.” Hispania, vol. 38, no. 2, 1955, pp. 187–192. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/335812. .
[2] Análisis de la Obra El reino de este mundo (Alejo Carpentier). (2019, December 13). Retrieved from https://www.unireformada.edu.co/analisis-de-la-obra-el-reino-de-este-mundo-alejo-carpertier/ (read here for free in Spanish)
[3] Borges, J. L. (n.d.). Historia Universal de la Infamia. Retrieved from http://biblio3.url.edu.gt/Libros/borges/infamia.pdf
[4] Awad, N., Madeleine Ross and Poppy Atkinson Gibson, Riani, B., Hopkins, M., Gamsay, R., Gibson, P. A., . . . Roche, A. (2021, May 13). The radical potential of magical realism. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2021/05/13/the-radical-potential-of-magical-realism/
[5] Kafka, F. (n.d.). The Metamorphosis. Retrieved from https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Kafka_Metamorphosis.pdf
[6] Awad, N., Riani, B., Hopkins, M., Gamsay, R., Gibson, P. A., Foulston, F., . . . Brown, J. (2021, May 13). The radical potential of magical realism. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2021/05/13/the-radical-potential-of-magical-realism/
[7] Schmidt, T. A. (2020, August 02). The Consequences of America's Era of Magical Realism. Retrieved from https://groundedcuriosity.com/the-consequences-of-americas-era-of-magical-realism/#.YNSK1C2cbGI
[8] About Magical Realism. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.somethingmarvelous.org/what-is-magical-realism#:~:text= Magical realism as a distinct literary genre has, and the sense that anything could be possible.
[9] Oscar, Carcache, M., Basu, A., Wasserman, S., Shams, Rahman, A., . . . Sathya. (2020, September 13). Oscar. Retrieved from https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/21/magical-realism/
[10] :, #. P. (n.d.). Mimicry and Hybridity in Plain English. Retrieved from https://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2009/05/mimicry-and-hybridity-in-plain-english.html
[11] J. T. (1995). The textualization of the reader in magical realism. Retrieved from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780822397212-014/pdf
Published by Duke University Press (1995)
[12] Kennedy, B. (2015). BEN OKRI. Callaloo, 38(5), 1015-1016. Retrieved July 1, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24738385