In a Nutshell
By Dr. Lois Parkinson Zamora

An old man with enormous wings appears in a Colombian village; a girl of unearthly beauty ascends to heaven while hanging out her sister-in-law's sheets; it rains for four years, seven months and eleven days until boredom turns to apocalypse and a biblical hurricane sweeps the town away. In fiction described by the term "magical realism," miracles, myths, and monsters mix with the mundane, and fantastical events are narrated as if they were everyday occurrences.

What is Real?
These are all events from Gabriel García Márquez's fiction—which is considered to be the defining example of magical realism, despite the author's refusal of the label. He protests that he is not a magical realist but a realist, and that there isn't a single thing in his fiction that hasn't really happened to him or someone he knows.

The Colombian author's point is well taken: the question of what is real is at the heart of magical realism. García Márquez implies that our notions of reality are too limited—that reality includes magic, miracles and monsters, and that we don't need to go around inventing special terms to describe it. By making things happen in his fictional world of Macondo that do not happen in most novels (or in most readers' experiences either), the author asks us to question our assumptions about our world, and to examine our certainties about ourselves and our community. Because the magical events in Macondo are presented matter-of-factly, our own sense of what is possible is amplified and enriched. Ordinary objects and events are enchanted. As the gypsy Melquíades says in the first paragraph of the novel, "Things have a life of their own. It's simply a question of waking up their souls."

Bridging the Cultural Divide
García Márquez also suggests that cultures and countries differ in what they call "real." It is here that magical realism serves its most important function, because it facilitates the inclusion of alternative belief systems. It is no coincidence that magical realism is flourishing in cultures such as Mexico and Colombia, where European and indigenous cultures have mixed, with the result that ancient myths are often just beneath the surface of modernity.

It's not just in Latin America where Western and non-Western cultures have converged. Toni Morrison, a Nobel laureate alongside García Márquez, writes novels that depend upon African cultural sources to describe American settings. American writers Leslie Silko and Louise Erdrich incorporate Pueblo and Ojibway cultural traditions.

As these examples suggest, women's fiction may be especially attuned to the "magic" in real places and people. The Chilean writer Isabel Allende proposes the wonderful world of clairvoyant women in her magical realist novel The House of the Spirits, and the Mexican writer Laura Esquivel makes the kitchen the site of magic in Like Water for Chocolate. To enter into the fictional worlds of these women writers is to enter into "real" worlds like García Márquez's Macondo, where magic comes naturally, as a simple, everyday occurrence.

Turning Proof on its Ear
Magical realism engages belief systems that defy rational, empirical (scientific) proof. So, too, do science fiction and fantasy and gothic romance. But the crucial difference is that magical realism sets magical events in realistic contexts, thus requiring us to question what is "real," and how we can tell. Magical realism undermines our certainties, and we eventually accept (often without authorial explanation) the fusion, or co-existence, of contradictory worlds—worlds that would be irreconcilable in other modes of fiction. Magical realist fiction is not "either/or" but "both at once."

	More on the incomparable Toni Morrison, one of Oprah's favorite writers. Many of her novels have become Oprah's Book Club selections.
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It should come as no great surprise that Gabriel García Márquez wrote this fictionalization of Colombian history in epic form. Epics are timeless—they tell the human story of life from beginning to end. Colombia, to the author, was a place larger than life.One Hundred Years of Solitude is the living, breathing portrait of his sense of marvel about his homeland.

One Hundred Years of Solitude isn't only an epic literary work; it's the seminal work of the literary aesthetic that it popularized. Magical realism isn't a trend or a literary fluke; it has enjoyed a presence in world literature for hundreds of years. Though Latin American writers popularized it, magical realism's ongoing presence in world literature suggests its enduring cultural significance.

Magical Realism's Relevance
Western readers in the 21st century have much to gain by reading magical realism. It has a vision that offers some relief from the gritty and depressing realism of the last century. It's not that all readers need escape from the truth, but it may be that we've entered a cultural realm in our own collective history where it has become necessary to question what's real. What is the truth?

We are a nation in search of the truth. Most recently, how did the terrorist attacks on September 11 happen, after all? Before that date in 2001, no one in the Western world would've ever believed such an event was possible.

Our Common Humanity
We are also a culture of conspiracy theories and urban legends; we invent our own folklore in order to fill in facts that are otherwise left blank. We love reading murder mysteries and true crime and we are fascinated with crime scene investigations. This isn't because we have a collectively vulgar desire to see dead bodies but because we want to know what happened to the victims. It's their stories we crave. Their stories could be our stories.

This is why magical realism offers lasting appeal for readers. True, people like to be transported to places that are unusual or exotic, they like to read stories that blur the edges between what's real and what's unreal. But in the end, it's about finding new territory for telling our own stories. We need the pain, the honesty, the humor, the audacity, and the marvel of magical realism as a way to acknowledge, capture—indeed, to celebrate—our common humanity.

While magical realist stories from around the world can vary greatly in tone, context and content, they share some common elements. Identifying these features can help you differentiate between magical realism and other kinds of imaginative writing. Take a look at some of the characteristics below. You may be surprised to learn that you've already read magical realism without even realizing it! Elements of the magical and the mundane are interwoven seamlessly, making it impossible to determine where reality ends and the extraordinary begins. The story is set in an otherwise ordinary world, with familiar historical and/or cultural realities. Story events are not always explained by universal laws or familiar logic. The ordinary aspects of the story are what produce the greatest magic. Objects and settings within the story may take on lives of their own in a way that is ordinary to the characters in the story. Constructs of time do not follow typical Western conventions. For instance, stories may be told in spiraling shapes rather than in straight lines. The story, as it unfolds, gives the reader a sense of being inside a puzzle or maze. Contradictions, inconsistencies and ambiguities color the point of view, making you question what you understand about the world at large, as well as what happens inside the story. A metamorphosis takes place in the story. It's treated not as a miracle, but as an everyday event. The story bears the influences of oral tradition: fables, myths, tall tales, urban legends, a charmed storytelling narrator (who may or may not be reliable). The magical elements in the story may enhance a subversive message or personalized point of view. Often the point of view is revealed through voices, ideas, and places which exist outside the mainstream or majority perspective. Magic occurs without using devices typical to the fantasy genre unless the devices (i.e. ghosts, angels) are employed in a context that makes them ordinary. Ghosts or angels may exist in a magical realist story, for instance, but not in a way that is surprising or unusual to the characters in the book. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Films for the Humanities and Sciences Visit http://www.magical-realism.com for magically real short stories from all over the world, as well as more detailed information on magical realism.			Distinguishing Features In a Nutshell How to Read It Message for This Century Realism in the Details The Pull of Opposites What's in a Name? A World of Magic
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