Used as a literary term, magical (also: magic) realism refers to a mode of writing that may most briefly be characterized as an “amalgamation of realism and fantasy” (Flores). The term in its present sense was first applied to Latin American literature from the 1960s, with Gabriel García Márquez’s novel
One Hundred Years of Solitude(1967) generally being regarded as paradigmatic of the mode. Other magical-realist writers from Latin America include Márquez’s contemporaries Julio Cortázar and Alejo Carpentier, and more recently, Isabel Allende. Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has also been labelled a magical-realist; however his work differs considerably from fiction considered exemplary of the mode. Starting in the 1980s, the concept of magical realism began to be more broadly…
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Citation: Hegerfeldt, Anne. "Magic Realism, Magical Realism". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 February 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=682, accessed 23 November 2024.]
