Description
Gabriel Garcia Marquez once stated: "My most important problem was destroying the line of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic." Although the term was first used by German art critic Franz Roh in 1925, It is commonly thought of as a Latin American movement. It is related to surrealism, but it is focused on the material object as opposed to its German roots of surrealism's more cerebral and subconscious reality. In 1949, French-Russian Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, developed his related concept marvelous realism. Magical Realism refers to literary fiction with supernatural elements presented in an otherwise real-world setting thus revealing the magical in this world. Fables, folk tales, and myths ae brought into contemporary social relevance. The narrator doesn’t explain fantastic events, the story proceeds as if nothing extraordinary happened. In Latin America, magic realism contains another feature: politics. This is a "Third World" society. Brutal police and army regimes, arbitrary cruelty, murder, corrupt dictators and the underlying, unspoken hand of the “American Company” are ever present in its fiction. Amongst the sensory exuberance of the Latin American landscape, Magic is the only explanation for the unreasonable reality of daily life that surrounds the powerless individual. And his only hope.
Weekly Topics
Weekly Topics
Week 1 and 2 Introduction: Definition of the movement. Origin. European precedents.
Alejo Carpentier Bio (Wikipedia)
Week 3: Alejo Carpentier short story: Journey Back to the Source from Oxford Book
Of Latin American Short Stories, OBLASS. Plus his book, The Chase.
Week 4 & 5: Miguel Angel Asturias. Selections from his short story collection,
Mirror of Lida Sal: Tales Based on Mayan Myths and Guatemalan Legends.
Week 6 & 7: Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Selections from 100 Years of Solitude and
Balthazar’s Marvelous Afternoon from OBLASS.
Weeks 8 and 9: Isabel Allende. Selections from The House of Spirits (book) and
The Stories of Eve Luna (book).
Weeks 10 & 11: Julio Cortazar” Selected stories from Blow-up and Other Stories.
Week 12: Mario Vargas Llosa: The Challenge from OBLASS and selections from
the book Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.
Weeks 13 & 14: Summaries/ Reviews/ Discussion/Conclusions.
Bibliography
1) A Study Guide for "Magic Realism", GALE Cengage learning, (Literary Movements for Students, Vol. 2, 62 pages)
2) The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories, Paperback, January 1997 by Roberto Gonzalez Echeverria
3) A companion to Magical Realism (Monographies A) paperback-March 18, 2019 by Stephen M. Hart and Wen-Chin-Ouyang
4) Single Stories Extracted from books by the individual authors not covered
