Your Guide to Magical Realism: A Literary Genre Exploring the Boundaries Between Reality & Fantasy
Updated: Sep 2
A WORLDWIDE TOUR OF THE BEST MAGICAL REALISM BOOKS OF ALL TIMES
I was a magical realism reader before I was a writer.
In Venezuela, when I switched to 'Bachillerato en Letras,' or liberal arts baccalaureate, I read several Latin American pre- and post-colonial authors up to modern times. I really enjoyed that part of my education. Before that, in the US educational system, and even in Cuba's, I had had little to no exposure to good literature except the poetry and stories of José Martí.
Needless to say, the pens of so many Latin American authors, Borges, Gallegos, Pietri, Sabato, Marquez, and many more, have left an indelible mark in my psyche. Perhaps that is why when I started making up stories of my own, I mixed up reality with fantasy. In the worlds I created for Max, Isabel, Taharai, and even Sojourner, there is an element of fantasy that goes beyond reality to the realms of "probability," without which I find it less appealing to write.
Part One –
Find out about the history of magical realism fiction and why anyone should care to take a tour of the best magical realism books across the globe.
Perhaps since the beginning of time, people have told stories in which the mundane intersects with the supernatural, time seems cyclical, where political critique is a backdrop, and there’s more than one reality. Since Stone Age man has depicted monsters greater than reality on cave walls.
But today, the monsters are lurking in the crevices of our imagination, behind every thought and into every storyline of the affected imaginarium that is the brain of a writer.
Today, magical realism is the norm. What makes magical realist novels, films, and series on streaming channels more relevant than ever? Although you may not see the genre written as 'magical realism 'in your series description, that is exactly what you are getting when the science fiction can't be explained by science and the new reality is simply part of the ordinary existence of the human story at the time and place the story takes place.
If you take on the challenge of reading the top magical realism books curated here to capture the essence of this transgressive genre and its socio-political importance, I will write a magical realism children's story for you as a ghostwriter. Contact me here.
But first, let's take a short ride around the Magical Realism Fiction Novel territory
You might ask, What is magical realism?
Today, “magical realism” is much more than a coined phrase by Puerto Rican literary critic Angel Flores, PhD, Cornell University, in 1955. In his essay “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction,”[i] 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 in these novels rooted in the socio-political reality of their time.
Who is the Father of the Magical Realism novel? It seems like the jury is still out on that one
The literary critic Angel Flores proposed the renowned Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges as the father of the genre with his book “Historia Universal de la Infamia, (A Universal History of Infamy), published in 1935, posted below.
However, a controversy arose, as multiple authors in different parts of the world appear to have “fathered” the magical realism novel.
Perhaps the father of the genre is every writer who seamlessly seeps the force of the supernatural into a cataclysmic reality and uses the same elements of magical realism in their narrative.
You might ask, What are the elements of magical realism fiction?
1. Realistic Setting (link to guidelines)
2. Fantastical/Supernatural Elements (link to guidelines)
3. Political Critique (link to guidelines)
4. Hybridity (link to guidelines)
5. Metafiction (link to guidelines)
6. Non-linearity(link to guidelines)
A nonlinear timeline of the best magical realism books.
Why did Angel Flores say Borges was the one who planted the seed?
Jorge Luis Borges (1899 -1986)
Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America
According to a Kirkus review published in 1972, Borges, goes straight to the “ambiguous equation of power, magic, and style,” characteristic of magical realists. (Read for free in Spanish; download Historia Universal de la Infamia in a PDF file).
Borges' works are classics in Latin American literature, but is he the seed of magical realism?
Other works of magical realism BY JORGE LUIS BORGES: THE ALEPH & OTHER STORIES
What are the Roots of Magical Realism?
Who coined the term “magic realism” was Franz Roh, a German art critic, in 1925. Before there were magical realism books, there was magic realism art.
German Painting in the 20TH Century (published posthumously in 1968)
Author: Franz Roh (1890-1965)
From: Germany
When discussing how magical realism got its wings we must bring German Art critic, Franz Roh, into the conversation, as he is credited with coining the term magic realism in 1925.
Historian, art critic, collagist and photographer, Franz Roh, published the illustrated art history book, German Painting in the 20th Century posthumously and was a great influencer of art trends. In this book, he describes the art movements and their meaningful role in society.
Other works of magical realism BY FRANZ ROH: Retrospektive Fotografie
Was Venezuelan writer, Arturo Uslar Pietri, the Patriarch of the Magical Realism novel?
Was magical realism first published in the land of Bolivar by author and statesman Arturo Uslar Pietri?
book
The Red Lances (1931)
Arturo Uslar Pietri (1906 – 2001)
Caracas, Venezuela
Arturo Uslar Pietri, a prolific Venezuelan author and statesman, is one of the candidates for popping the magical realism novel with his book The Red Lances, published in 1931.
In this book, the reader follows the revolutionary exploits of Simón Bolívar’s independence campaigns, where European and American myths and legends amalgamated and gave birth to Latin America.
Other works of magical realism BY ARTURO USLAR PIETRI: LANZAS COLORADAS OPERA ROCK
When and where did magical realism flourish as a literary genre?
We see it early on in America; both Pietri and Borges published their books in 1935, and it borrows its name from a European Avant-Garde art movement in 1925. But as early as 1915, magical realism had already debuted.
This is a malleable genre. Every author who embodies magical realism adds new depth to the genre.
“El mito es el reflejo de la realidad.”
(Myth is the reflection of reality), wrote Carpentier in the foreword of his book, The Kingdom of this World, in 1941, and differentiated the term to “lo real maravilloso” in Latin America.
The Kingdom of this World (1941)
Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980)
Cuba (of French-Russian descent)
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 novel about the syncretism of the African gods in America possibly meet the criteria for magical realism? Download the pdf here for free.
Alejo Carpentier,[ii] a Cuban-born author of European descent, is considered the master of the Latin American style, which he differentiated from the European Avant Garde movement and called it “marvelous reality.” Carpentier identified as Cuban, but he was actually born in Switzerland and raised in Cuba. But his novel is about the Haitian Revolution.
Other works of magical realism BY CARPENTIER: THE CHASE
Should Garcia Marquez be today's Patriarch of the modern magical realism novel?
Marquez brought the genre’s elements into literary focus with the international success of One Hundred Years of Solitude and received the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1982 for his works of magical realism.
Leading the Polls for Patriarch of the Magical Realism novel would be Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the best-known magical realist with his landmark book which has attracted worldwide attention and socio-political significance.
GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUES (1927-2014)
ARACATACA, COLOMBIA
Translated into 44 languages and compared to the Iliad and the Aeneid, Marquez resolves the controversy as the patriarch of the magical realism novel by setting in stone the elements that comprise the genre’s current definition giving way to a socio-political movement in Latin America.[iii]
Seven generations of the Buendia family and the rise and fall of the town of Macondo where the historical and political realities combine and amalgamate with the mythical and anecdotal.
Other works of magical realism: BY GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ - LOVE IN THE TIMES OF CHOLERA
WAIT A MINUTE!
The above authors, Pietri, Borges, Carpentier, and Marquez were all Latin American authors. Couldn’t the magical realism novel have been published elsewhere too? Of course...
That we know of … Way before magical realism became a socio-political movement in Latin America during the 60s and 70s. Way before the international doors of the Big Five flung wide open to receive this category. There was Kafka.
THE METAMORPHOSIS ((1915))
Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
Germany (of Czech descent)
When a traveling salesman wakes up one morning transformed into a giant cockroach, he realizes the best thing to do is die, since he can't change his appearance and his family and friends are repulsed by him.
There are all the elements of magical realism here, but it leans more toward the surreal side of fiction in modern avant-garde literature.
Some people ask:
Is the Kafkaesque a magical realism attribute? Or is magical realism Kafkaesque? They are one and the same.
ANOTHER REMARKABLE WORK BY FRANZ KAFKA: THE TRIAL
In summary, when we read magical realism books, we must look for the supernatural as ordinary, a hybrid world, a critique of life or politics, nonlinearity, and a strong pull toward the plot. If we look beyond Kafka, we might find earlier forms of similar literary expression blending magic or the supernatural with reality in the context of the saga of everyday life, which shows the universality of magical realism stories. Stories about supernatural beings and realities beyond the
A worldwide tour of the best magical realism books
of all times.
PART TWO
THE WORLDWIDE IMPACT OF
MAGICAL REALISM
Each book in the following smorgasbord of the best magical realism books from around the world has been put to the Magical Realism (MR) test. Here are the guidelines. (link)
Warning!
Reading these books may have a metafiction effect on readers.
Let’s put American Gods to the Magical Realism (MR) test. Did you know this prolific English writer of numerous bestselling books with many works adapted to the screen, teaches a masterclass on Magical Realism?
https://amzn.to/4gJ2xw5 - click here for the Prime Video Series
1. Setting – American Gods takes place in the US at the center of America in Wisconsin and on the roadside. Temporary settings on the go. In Georgia.
2. Magical elements – old Norse Gods appearing as humans are at war with the new American pagan gods. Perhaps these old gods live inside the descendants of Europeans who worshipped them but forgot about them and replaced them with the new gods of technology and media.
Now America has a new mythology. Non dualism may be a theme here as the gods can turn from good to bad.
3. Socio-political critique - Americans are as pagan as ever, they worship technology and fame. The new gods are gadgets and media, even fast food. They rule the minds and actions of the heart of Americans.
4. Hybridity – are there multiple levels of awareness in American Gods? There are the gods and the ones that worshipped them. The new gods are powerful. The old gods are diminished. But they are not any better or worse in essence.
5. Metafiction – the only way to read this book or watch this series is to suspend judgment and then everything will start to make sense
Other works of magical realism BY NEIL GAIMAN: Coraline: Graphic Novel https://amzn.to/46gGdDV
1. Setting – the story takes place in Chile during the course of four generations of the Trueba del Valle family before World War I and up until the 1970s.
2. Fantastical element – paranormal powers and activity, phantasmagorical.
3. Socio-political critique - Big time! In post-colonial Latin America, the divide between classes is wide and based on race. The newly elected socialist government is met with a coup d’état that abolishes the constitutional government and enforces a lawless rule and dictatorship.
4. Hybridity - Different social classes and races participate in the plot. The farmers and peons are characteristically native and brown skinned. The upper classes are white. The sons of peasants become soldiers, or they become socialists.
5. Metafiction - The story is told from the perspective of the mother, daughter and granddaughter. The reader sees the cause and effect, the consequences, and karma.
Other works of magical realism by ISABEL ALLENDE: EVA LUNA
1. Setting – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bombay, several other cities, fabulous houses, shacks, and slums. Time flows nonlinearly from the grandfather-grandmother romance before World War I to the narrator’s coming of age after his birth in 1947.
2. Fantastical /supernatural elements - telepathically, the main character contacts all the children born on the stroke of midnight in 1947, year of the independence of Pakistan from India and from British rule altogether. Every child has a special power. Every child’s story is a special place and time in India’s history, and they are all intertwined. Witches and enchanters.
3. Socio-political critique – it’s all a critique of everything. There is no alignment, and everything is one chaos after another. There is no peace.
4. Hybridity – every midnight child is a component or aspect of India, unique and the same. A colonized country with a system of caste and multiple religious tendencies is severed from an important historical region which wants to become the new nation of Pakistan. As the British rule disappears the struggle for power begins and the atrocities of war ravage the land on many fronts during the lifetime of Salim, the narrator.
5. Metafiction - A person from another culture much removed from India’s history can absorb the gist of the plot. it’s like the Arabian Nights but not the Disney-made would-be version.
Other works of magical realism BY SALMAN RUSHDIE : QUIXOYE
1. Setting: Norwegian Wood is set in the ordinary world of everyday middleclass life in Japan during the 60s.
2. Fantastical/Supernatural elements: depression and suicide are very real but there is an aura of surrealism in each of the characters. The song and the plot of the story are about a girl who once “had” the protagonist and he reminisces.
3. Socio-political critique: The backdrop of the novel is the student movement of the 60s. The lack of Japanese identity in the years after the War is a recurrent theme in Murakami’s works.
4. Hybridity: There are two worlds in Murakami’s novels, the real and the one the protagonists go to in their minds. There is also a lack of Japanese tradition and culture.
5. Metafiction: The characters get into the reader’s head, and this seems to draw one into Murakami’s novels.
Other works of magical realism BY HARUKI MURAKAMI: IQ84
1. Setting: Nigeria, village life.
2. Fantastical/ Supernatural elements: Life itself is supernatural, there is no distinction. Wow, can you dig it?
3. Socio-political critique: Africa, the mother continent—a nondual world struggles between the forces of extremes.
4. Hybridity: the spirit world and the physical intertwined.
5. Metafiction: This FREE JSTOR article by Baroness Helena Kennedy really gets to the medulla of it. Words cannot describe. Kennedy, Baroness Helena. “BEN OKRI.” Callaloo 38, no. 5 (2015): 1015–16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24738385.
Other works of magical realism BY BEN OKRI: THE FAMISHED ROAD
1. Setting: Cincinnati, Ohio, in the aftermath of civil war, during the joke of reconstruction.
2. Fantastical/ Supernatural elements: phantasmagorical, ghosts, real and imaginary.
3. Socio-poliitical critique: The traumas of slavery unravel in the lives of those who suffer its consequences
4. Hybridity: Freedom is not a word; in the characters’ minds, they are still enslaved by the realization of the surreal nightmare of a reality that lasted several generations and still haunts humanity in this continent.
5. Metafiction: Perhaps we feel the strongest when we get so close to horror in our own backyards.
The international and diverse impact of magical realism fiction and the advent of the magical realism novel in the publishing world are testaments of the universal awareness of the supernatural in everyday life.
Other works of magical realism BY TONI MORRISON: TAR BABY
To recap, a Latin American “magical realism” novel was fathered by Pietri, adopted by Carpentier, and finally set in stone by Marquez. “Magic realism” was an art movement in Germany. Kafka’s Metamorphosis is the earliest magical realism published but it may fit the category of surrealism better. The literary critic Angel Flores may have chosen Borges to be the father of magical realism, but his works were short story compilations and Pietri’s novel was first.
What is magical realism but the awareness of the supernatural in everyday life? Everywhere around the world, where there is telling of such Truth in fiction, there is MR.
It is probable that reading these hand-picked best magical realism books from around the world will help readers achieve a deeper understanding of the importance of magical realism–its exposure of reality from the point of view of judgment day, set in a historical setting, in the raw supernatural or magical elements, down to the individual consciousness of the mind.
References
[i] Flores, Angel. “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction.” Hispania, vol. 38, no. 2, 1955, pp. 187–192. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/335812. .
[ii] Borges, J. L. (n.d.). Historia Universal de la Infamia. Retrieved from http://biblio3.url.edu.gt/Libros/borges/infamia.pdf
[iii] 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/
[iv] Kennedy, B. (2015). BEN OKRI. Callaloo, 38(5), 1015-1016. Retrieved July 1, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24738385
The Genre, Magic Realism, has been around since people imagined and felt the unseen. So yea, it's not just with the gift of Kafka's Metamorphosis that we are suddenly endowed with extrasensorial ideas. Today, magic realism can be seen and read in many formats including video games and comic strips. As a matter of fact, if you take out the pop fluff off of the Stan Lee stuff, that's what you've got.
Now, a new awareness has been cleared up called the feminist magic realism. The list of stories in this genre surpasses any list conceived before. Check it out here:
About what magic realism is NOT...
Think of historical fiction. It's realistic. Now think of supernatural, metaphysical, or paranormal events, circumstances or objects placed in this context. You still have magic realism.
So, take out the historical fiction. Instead, create a make believe world in a faraway corner of an unknown galaxy, and then you'll have fantasy. But it will be called sci-fi because of its high tech syndrome. This is an example of what magic realism is not.
Another example would be Harry Potter. It turned out to be an epic. Yes, there's elements of magic realism here—the magic itself. But this world is not founded on reality and it is more of a coming of age story in the making.
What about Gaiman's work? It depends on the piece. "American Gods" seems to be the most appropriate with Odin, an African deity, calling the shots. But what about the Sandman? The jury is still out on that one. It seems like the world in which the Sandman exists is not founded on reality and the social critique is just not there.
The feminist list of magic realism authors and stories informs this writer of why she writes and labels the works in that rank, but she didn't know it until by serendipity the term showed up in the many search results
A WORLDWIDE TOUR OF THE BEST MAGICAL REALISM BOOKS OF ALL TIMES
Part One –
Find out about the history of magical realism fiction and why anyone should care to take a tour of the best magical realism books across the globe.
Perhaps people have been telling stories in which the mundane interconnects with the supernatural, time seems to be cyclical, the critique of politics is a backdrop, and there’s more than one reality, since the Stone Age man depicted monsters on cave walls.
What then makes magical realist novels more relevant than ever today? Read the top magical realism books curated here to help literature enthusiasts and students capture the essence of this transgressive genre and its socio-political importance.
History of the Magical Realism Fiction Novel
What is magical realism?
Today, “magical realism” is much more than a coined phrase by Puerto Rican literary critic, Angel Flores, PhD, Cornell University, in 1955. In his essay “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction,”[i] 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 in these novels rooted in the socio-political reality of their time.
Who is the Father of the Magical Realism novel?
The literary critic Angel Flores proposed renown Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, to be the father of the genre with his book “Historia Universal de la Infamia, (A Universal History of Infamy)” published in 1935.
However, there arose a controversy and there appear to be multiple authors in different parts of the world who “fathered” the magical realism novel.
Perhaps the father of the genre is every writer who seamlessly seeps the force of the supernatural into a cataclysmic reality. And uses the same elements of magical realism in their narrative.
What are the elements of the genre magical realism fiction?
1. Realistic Setting (link to guidelines)
2. Fantastical/Supernatural Elements (link to guidelines)
3. Political Critique (link to guidelines)
4. Hybridity (link to guidelines)
5. Metafiction (link to guidelines)
6. Non-linearity(link to guidelines)
A nonlinear timeline of the best magical realism books.
Why did Angel Flores say Borges was the one who planted the seed?
Jorge Luis Borges (1899 -1986)
Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America
According to a Kirkus review published in 1972, Borges, goes straight to the “ambiguous equation of power, magic, and style,” characteristic of magical realists. (Read for free in Spanish; download Historia Universal de la Infamia in pdf file).
Borges works are classics in Latin American literature but is he the seed of magical realism?
Other works of magical realism BY JORGE LUIS BORGES: TH ALEPH & OTHER STORIES
What are the Roots of Magical Realism?
Who coined the term “magic realism” was Franz Roh, a German art critic, in 1925. Before there were magical realism books there was magic realism art.
German Painting in the 20TH Century (published posthumously in 1968)
Author: Franz Roh (1890-1965)
From: Germany
When discussing how magical realism got its wings we must bring German Art critic, Franz Roh, into the conversation, as he is credited with coining the term magic realism in 1925.
Historian, art critic, collagist and photographer, Franz Roh, published the illustrated art history book, German Painting in the 20th Century posthumously and was a great influencer of art trends. In this book he describes the art movements and their meaningful tool in society.
Other works of magical realism BY FRANZ ROH: Retrospektive Fotografie
Was Venezuelan writer, Arturo Uslar Pietri, the Patriarch of the Magical Realism novel?
Was magical realism first published in the land of Bolivar by author and statesman Arturo Uslar Pietri?
The Red Lances (1931)
Arturo Uslar Pietri (1906 – 2001)
Caracas, Venezuela
Arturo Uslar Pietri, a prolific Venezuelan author and statesman, is one of the candidates for popping the magical realism novel with his book The Red Lances, published in 1931.
In this book, the reader follows the revolutionary exploits of Simon Bolivar’s independence campaigns where European and American myths and legends amalgamated and gave birth to Latin America.
Other works of magical realism BY ARTURO USLAR PIETRI: LANZAS COLORADAS OPERA ROCK
When and where did magical realism flourish?
We see it early on in America and borrow its name from a European Avant Garde art movement. But every author that embodies magical realism adds new depth to the genre.
“El mito es el reflejo de la realidad.”
(Myth is the reflection of reality), wrote Carpentier in the foreword of his book, The Kingdom of this World in 1941 and differentiated the term to “lo real maravilloso” in Latino America.
The Kingdom of this World (1941)
Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980)
Cuba (of French-Russian descent)
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.
Alejo Carpentier,[ii] a Cuban author of European descent, is considered the master of the Latin American style which he differentiated from the European Avant Garde movement and called it “marvelous reality.”
Other works of magical realism BY CARPENTIER: THE CHASE
Should Garcia Marquez be the Patriarch of the magical realism novel?
Marquez brought the genre’s elements into literary focus with the international success of One Hundred Years of Solitude and received the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1982 for his works of magical realism.
Leading the Polls for Patriarch of the Magical Realism novel is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the best-known magical realist and his landmark book which attracted worldwide attention and socio-political significance.
GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUES (1927-2014)
ARACATACA, COLOMBIA
Translated into 44 languages and compared to the Iliad and the Aeneid, Marquez resolves the controversy as the patriarch of the magical realism novel by setting in stone the elements that comprise the genre’s current definition giving way to a socio-political movement in Latin America.[iii]
Seven generations of the Buendia family and the rise and fall of the town of Macondo where the historical and political realities combine and amalgamate with the mythical and anecdotal.
Other works of magical realism: BY GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ - LOVE IN THE TIMES OF CHOLERA
WAIT A MINUTE!
The above authors, Pietri, Borges, Carpentier, and Marquez were all Latin American authors. Couldn’t the magical realism novel have been published elsewhere first?
That we know of … Way before magical realism became a socio-political movement in Latin America during the 60s and 70s. Way before the international doors of the Big Five flung wide open to receive this category. There was Kafka.
THE METAMORPHOSIS ((1915))
Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
Germany (of Czech descent)
When a traveling salesman wakes up one morning transformed into a giant cockroach, he realizes the best thing for him to do is die as he is unable to change his appearance and his family and friends are repulsed by him.
There are elements of magical realism here, but more on the surrealism side of fiction in modern Avant Garde literature.
Is the Kafkaesque a magical realism attribute? Or is magical realism Kafkaesque?
OTHER REMARKABLE WORKS BY FRANZ KAFKA: THE TRIAL
In summary, when we read magical realism books, we must look for the supernatural as ordinary, a hybrid world, a critique of life or politics, and nonlinearity, plus a strong pull towards its plot. If we looked beyond Kafka, we might find earlier forms of similar literary expression which blends magic or the supernatural with reality in the context of the saga of everyday life, which goes to show the universality of magical realism stories.
A worldwide tour of the best magical realism books
of all times.
PART TWO
THE WORLDWIDE IMPACT OF MAGICAL REALISM
Each book in the following smorgasbord of the best magical realism books from around the world has been put to the Magical Realism (MR) test. Here are the guidelines. (link)
Warning!
Reading these books may have a metafiction effect on readers.
Let’s put American Gods to the Magical Realism (MR) test. Did you know this prolific English writer of numerous bestselling books with many works adapted to the screen, teaches a masterclass on Magical Realism?
1. Setting – American Gods takes place in the US at the center of America in Wisconsin and on the roadside. Temporary settings on the go. In Georgia.
2. Magical elements – old Norse Gods appearing as humans are at war with the new American pagan gods. Perhaps these old gods live inside the descendants of Europeans who worshipped them but forgot about them and replaced them with the new gods of technology and media.
Now America has a new mythology. Non dualism may be a theme here as the gods can turn from good to bad.
3. Socio-political critique - Americans are as pagan as ever, they worship technology and fame. The new gods are gadgets and media, even fast food. They rule the minds and actions of the heart of Americans.
4. Hybridity – are there multiple levels of awareness in American Gods? There are the gods and the ones that worshipped them. The new gods are powerful. The old gods are diminished. But they are not any better or worse in essence.
5. Metafiction – the only way to read this book or watch this series is to suspend judgment and then everything will start to make sense
Other works of magical realism BY NEIL GAIMAN:
1. Setting – the story takes place in Chile during the course of four generations of the Trueba del Valle family before World War I and up until the 1970s.
2. Fantastical element – paranormal powers and activity, phantasmagorical.
3. Socio-political critique - Big time! In post-colonial Latin America, the divide between classes is wide and based on race. The newly elected socialist government is met with a coup d’état that abolishes the constitutional government and enforces a lawless rule and dictatorship.
4. Hybridity - Different social classes and races participate in the plot. The farmers and peons are characteristically native and brown skinned. The upper classes are white. The sons of peasants become soldiers, or they become socialists.
5. Metafiction - The story is told from the perspective of the mother, daughter and granddaughter. The reader sees the cause and effect, the consequences, and karma.
Other works of magical realism by ISABEL ALLENDE: EVA LUNA
1.
1. Setting – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bombay, several other cities, fabulous houses, shacks, and slums. Time flows nonlinearly from the grandfather-grandmother romance before World War I to the narrator’s coming of age after his birth in 1947.
2. Fantastical /supernatural elements - telepathically, the main character contacts all the children born on the stroke of midnight in 1947, year of the independence of Pakistan from India and from British rule altogether. Every child has a special power. Every child’s story is a special place and time in India’s history, and they are all intertwined. Witches and enchanters.
3. Socio-political critique – it’s all a critique of everything. There is no alignment, and everything is one chaos after another. There is no peace.
4. Hybridity – every midnight child is a component or aspect of India, unique and the same. A colonized country with a system of caste and multiple religious tendencies is severed from an important historical region which wants to become the new nation of Pakistan. As the British rule disappears the struggle for power begins and the atrocities of war ravage the land on many fronts during the lifetime of Salim, the narrator.
5. Metafiction - A person from another culture much removed from India’s history can absorb the gist of the plot. it’s like the Arabian Nights but not the Disney-made would-be version.
Other works of magical realism BY SALMAN RUSHDIE : QUIXOYE
1. Setting: Norwegian Wood is set in the ordinary world of everyday middleclass life in Japan during the 60s.
2. Fantastical/Supernatural elements: depression and suicide are very real but there is an aura of surrealism in each of the characters. The song and the plot of the story are about a girl who once “had” the protagonist and he reminisces.
3. Socio-political critique: The backdrop of the novel is the student movement of the 60s. The lack of Japanese identity in the years after the War is a recurrent theme in Murakami’s works.
4. Hybridity: There are two worlds in Murakami’s novels, the real and the one the protagonists go to in their minds. There is also a lack of Japanese tradition and culture.
5. Metafiction: The characters get into the reader’s head, and this seems to draw one into Murakami’s novels.
Other works of magical realism BY HARUKI MURAKAMI: IQ84
1. Setting: Nigeria, village life.
2. Fantastical/ Supernatural elements: Life itself is supernatural, there is no distinction. Wow, can you dig it?
3. Socio-political critique: Africa, the mother continent—a nondual world struggles between the forces of extremes.
4. Hybridity: the spirit world and the physical intertwined.
5. Metafiction: This FREE JSTOR article by Baroness Helena Kennedy really get to the medulla of it. Words cannot describe. [iv]
Other works of magical realism BY BEN OKRI: THE FAMISHED ROAD
1. Setting: Cincinnati, Ohio, in the aftermath of civil war, during the joke of reconstruction.
2. Fantastical/ Supernatural elements: phantasmagorical, ghosts, real and imaginary.
3. Socio-poliitical critique: The traumas of slavery unravel in the lives of those who suffer its consequences
4. Hybridity: Freedom is not a word; in the characters’ minds, they are still enslaved by the realization of the surreal nightmare of a reality that lasted several generations and still haunts humanity in this continent.
5. Metafiction: Perhaps we feel the strongest when we get so close to horror in our own backyards.
The international and diverse impact of magical realism fiction and the advent of the magical realism novel in the publishing world are testaments of the universal awareness of the supernatural in everyday life.
Other works of magical realism BY TONI MORRISON: TAR BABY
To recap, a Latin American “magical realism” novel was fathered by Pietri, adopted by Carpentier, and finally set in stone by Marquez. “Magic realism” was an art movement in Germany. Kafka’s Metamorphosis is the earliest magical realism published but it may fit the category of surrealism better. The literary critic Angel Flores may have chosen Borges to be the father of magical realism, but his works were short story compilations and Pietri’s novel was first.
What is magical realism but the awareness of the supernatural in everyday life? Everywhere around the world where there is telling of such Truth in fiction there is MR.
It is probable that reading these hand-picked best magical realism books from around the world will help readers achieve a deeper understanding of the importance of magical realism from history in the raw down to the individual consciousness.
[i] Flores, Angel. “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction.” Hispania, vol. 38, no. 2, 1955, pp. 187–192. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/335812. .
[ii] Borges, J. L. (n.d.). Historia Universal de la Infamia. Retrieved from http://biblio3.url.edu.gt/Libros/borges/infamia.pdf
[iii] 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/
[iv] Kennedy, B. (2015). BEN OKRI. Callaloo, 38(5), 1015-1016. Retrieved July 1, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24738385
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