{"id":20354,"date":"2025-09-13T16:50:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T16:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/20354\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T16:50:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T16:50:05","slug":"check-it-out-dive-in-to-magical-realism-fables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/20354\/","title":{"rendered":"Check It Out: Dive in to magical realism, fables"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Beth
\n\t\tBeth Wood is the senior collection development librarian for the Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries. Email her at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.
\n\t\tPhoto<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a delightful mystery called \u201cThe Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra\u201d by Vaseem Khan that weaves in a touch of magical realism. Magical realism refers to a story that takes place in the real world, but has some fantastical elements. To paraphrase Miracle Max in \u201cThe Princess Bride,\u201d it\u2019s only mostly true. Founded by Latinx authors, magical realism is often associated with their cultural histories, and may contain political elements. Fabulism is similar, but is more global and also uses more elements of fables or fairy tales. In both of these styles, magic is not explained, as though it is within our expectation that it would occur. By contrast, surrealism as a subgenre contains illogical and\/or dreamlike narratives. All three of these subgenres have similarities, and many titles contain elements of more than one subgenre.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cmagical realism\u201d achieved popular use by the 1940s, but fabulism dates back much further, even as far as the 1700s. Andr\u00e9 Breton is considered to have founded surrealism in 1924. Award-winning authors in these fields include Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Olga Tokarczuk, Yann Martel, Haruki Murakami \u2014 but not everything written by these authors falls into these subgenres.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples of books that are strong in these subgenres:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Metamorphosis and Other Stories\u201d by Franz Kafka (pub. 1995) \u2013 Surrealism
\n\u201cOne Hundred Years of Solitude\u201d by Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez (orig. 1967) \u2013 Magical realism
\n\u201cThe Bloody Chamber and Other Stories\u201d by Angela Carter (1979) \u2013 Fabulism
\n\u201cMidnight\u2019s Children\u201d by Salman Rushdie (1981) \u2013 Magical realism
\n\u201cBeloved\u201d by Toni Morrison (1987) \u2013 Fabulism
\n\u201cLike Water for Chocolate\u201d by Laura Esquival (1989) \u2013 Magical realism
\n\u201cThe Life of Pi\u201d by Yann Martel (2003) \u2013 Fabulism
\n\u201cKafka on the Shore\u201d by Haruki Murakami (2005) \u2013 Surrealism
\n\u201cThe House of the Spirits\u201d by Isabel Allende (2015) \u2013 Magical realism
\n\u201cLincoln in the Bardo\u201d by George Saunders (2017) \u2013 Fabulism
\n\u201cThe Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington\u201d by Leonora Carrington (pub. 2017) \u2013 Surrealism
\n\u201cHer Body and Other Parties\u201d by Carmen Maria Machado (2017) \u2013 Fabulism
\n\u201cEverything Under\u201d by Daisy Johnson (2018) \u2013 Fabulism
\n\u201cThe Gospel According to the New World\u201d by Maryse Cond\u00e9 (2021) \u2013 Magical realism
\n\u201cThe Books of Jacob\u201d by Olga Tokarczuk (2021) \u2013 Magical realism
\n\u201cWhale\u201d by Cheon Myeong-kwan (2023) \u2013 Magical realism<\/p>\n

As always, you can find these books and authors at your library. See you there!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beth Wood is the senior collection development librarian for the Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries. Email her at [email\u00a0protected].…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-20354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}