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 exemplar

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Published 06 February 2004

Citation: Hegerfeldt, Anne. "Magic Realism, Magical Realism". The Literary Encyclopedia. 6 February 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=682, accessed 9 February 2010.]