A narrative mode, most closely associated with Latin American fiction of the mid to late twentieth century, in which magical or supernatural elements appear within an otherwise realistically rendered world, presented by the narrative voice as ordinary rather than marvelous. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) is the movement's most widely read and most frequently cited example, though the term and mode predate him, and the movement includes writers well beyond Latin America, Salman Rushdie and Toni Morrison among those whose work has been discussed in relation to it.
Facts
Disputed
Period, From (Year)The term itself originates earlier and outside literature: the German art critic Franz Roh coined 'magischer Realismus' in 1925 to describe a style of post-Expressionist painting. Its literary sense is often dated to Angel Flores' 1955 essay 'Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction,' though the mode's most influential works, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), came later still, so no single date marks the movement's true beginning. Partially Attested
Period, To (Year)Source dates the Boom period's height to the early 1960s through the mid-1970s; magical realism as a broader global literary mode continues well past this span, so 1975 marks the end of the source's own dated Boom peak, not a claim that the style itself ended. Magical Realism
Filter Results1 entry
Connections
Associated Authors
Corrected from associated to holds: the movement's own description names him its defining figure, not merely an affiliated writer.
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
Associated With
The movement's own description names this its most widely read and most frequently cited example.
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
Why this is disputed. Garcia Marquez is credited with popularizing magical realism through his Boom-era novel, but scholars disagree on whether magical realism is a defining technique of the Boom itself or a broader stylistic label applied to Boom and non-Boom writers alike; see the dissent recorded on this edge.
Source Latin American Boom (Wikipedia)
Influenced By
Open Questions
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
2. Magic Realism (Encyclopedia.com)
Encyclopedia.comBody text, paragraph on the Boom period's dated spanQuote, Body text, paragraph on the Boom period's dated span
This style of writing reached its height in the Boom period of Latin-American literature, a period from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, in which a number of extremely important works, most notably Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Cortazar's Hopscotch, became internationally recognized.
The Norton Anthology of World Literature
W. W. Norton & Company
Latin American Boom (Wikipedia)
Associated With: The Latin American Boom, s.v. Latin American Boom, Connection to Magical RealismView the Source Open Questions (2 open questions)
Did magical realism originate in European art criticism or as a distinctly Latin American literary mode?
The term 'magical realism' was coined in 1925 by the German art critic Franz Roh for a style of painting, decades before its literary use, yet the movement is most closely associated with Latin American fiction of the mid-twentieth century, especially the Latin American Boom. Scholars disagree on whether the literary movement is a genuine continuation of Roh's art-critical category or an independently arisen Latin American mode that happened to inherit the same name.
What would resolve this A documented chain showing, or ruling out, direct influence from Roh's art criticism on the early Latin American writers who first used the mode would settle the question; existing scholarship has not established one conclusively either way.
Comparative literature and the history of the term's transmission from art criticism to literary criticismEncyclopaedia Britannica
Has magical realism ended as a literary movement, and if so when?
Magical realism remains an actively used literary mode; sources describe its flourishing beginning with Latin American Boom writers but name no closing year for the movement, and none suggest it has ended.
What would resolve this A literary-historical source explicitly marking a closing period for magical realism as a genre-defining movement, distinct from its continued use as a narrative technique.
Literary history and periodization scholarshipThe Norton Anthology of World Literature
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Associated With: The Latin American Boom
The mainstream account treats magical realism as substantially a Boom technique, popularized above all by Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and closely bound up with the Boom's international breakthrough. A documented dissenting view, associated with critics including Angel Flores, who argued the term's reach in Spanish American writing back to Jorge Luis Borges and other pre-Boom figures of the 1930s and 1940s, holds that magical realism is better understood as a longer-running and more geographically diffuse mode, one the Boom made internationally visible rather than one it originated, and that folding it into the Boom's own timeline understates its non-Boom and pre-Boom lineage.
A dissenting reading, from an independent laneLatin American Boom (Wikipedia)
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.