Magic, really

Q. Magic what

A. Magic - or Magical - Realism. In literature Magic Realism is a kind of fiction in which supernatural and natural characters and events merge as if there is no distinction between them. Elements of the dreamworld, fantasy and reality all co-exist in an almost fairy-tale fashion. It is characterised by the juxtaposition of the prosaic and the fantastic in a way that no other modern literature does. What differentiates it from pure fantasy is the fact that, whatever bizarre events take place, the settings tend to be in the everyday waking world.

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Q. Who coined the term

A. Franz Roh, a German art critic, who considered 'magical realism' an art category. In Latin America in the 1940s, when the genre really began to become popular, Magic Realism was seen as a way to create a unique literature that reflected the juxtaposition of the European and the Amerindian that is the essence of region.

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Q. So, is it exclusively or predominantly a Latin American literary tradition

A. Predominantly but not exclusively. It arose there because novelists began to reflect the often chaotic political realities of Latin America in the only way they could, in ironic realist fables with elements of naive, folk-inspired fantasy.

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Q. Who are the main exponents

A. The Latin Americans Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez, Isabel Allende, Alejo Carpentier, Mario Vargas Llosa and the Nigerian Ben Okri. It is no surprise that a post-colonial African author should be included in this list, as many of the same elements - unstable, often harsh political regimes combined with vibrant folk-tale traditions - are present in many African societies.

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Q. And outside Latin America

A. The influence of the style on popular writers in English - in particular Salman Rushdie, Angela Carter, John Fowles, Toni Morrison and Rupert Thompson - as well as Continental authors such as Italo Calvino and G�nter Grass, all kept the Magic Realist flame burning outside Latin America.

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Q. When was it popular

A. In the West it's heyday was the 1980s and 1990s, when translations of the works of Garc�a M�rquez, Borges, Allende and Vargas Llosa sold in unprecendented numbers.

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Q. But it's still around

A. It's alive and well in Latin America, though some writers are beginning to move towards a more realistic style. Here it's fallen from fashion for the time being.

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Q. Not to be confused with

A. The Neue Sachlichkeit (literally New Objectivity) movement - a group of German artists in the 1920s whose works were executed in a realistic style in contrast to the prevailing styles of Expressionism and Abstraction - were sometimes known as Magic Realists in the English-speaking world. Another movement, Sharp-Focus Realism, a US-based style of painting, which combined simple, sharply defined Precisionist compositions of machine-like clarity with decorative and illustrative Cubism was also dubbed Magic Realism.

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For an online magazine which deals with Magic Realist literature go to http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/margin/

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By Simon Smith