Okuzeka
Literature vocabulary · Literary Movements

Magical realism

Meaning in literature, with examples

nounCommon term

In literature, magical realism means: A style of fiction in which magical or impossible events happen in an otherwise realistic, everyday world and are described as if they were completely normal.

In Turkish: büyülü gerçekçilik

How it is used

Strongly linked with Latin American writers, especially Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, but also used for Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and many others. In Turkish literature, Latife Tekin's Sevgili Arsız Ölüm is often described this way.

Example sentences

  1. In this example of magical realism, nobody is surprised when the grandmother starts to fly.

  2. Unlike fantasy, magical realism does not build a separate imaginary world.

Common collocations

  • Latin American magical realism
  • a work of magical realism
  • elements of magical realism
  • RealismA nineteenth-century literary movement that aimed to show ordinary life and ordinary people accurately, without idealizing them, often with attention to social detail.
  • PostmodernismA movement in literature after the Second World War that plays with form and questions truth, often through irony, parody, mixing genres and fiction that comments on itself.
  • genreA category of literature defined by shared features of form, style or subject, such as poetry, drama and the novel, or crime, fantasy and romance.
  • novelA long story written in prose that describes imaginary people and events, usually long enough to fill a whole book and to develop characters in detail.

More terms: Literary Movements

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