What are the best magical realism books?
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What is magical realism in books?
Magical realism books aren’t your garden-variety fantasy tales full of dragons, wizards, and far-off realms. Instead, they drop some of fantasy’s magical elements into worlds that look and feel just like our own. In most magical realism stories, there’s at least one mystical element that’s never explained. The rest of the book is recognizably realistic, with characters living ordinary lives despite something fantastical being woven in. While magical realism is a fiercely popular book genre, the term actually comes from the art world. In 1925, German critic Franz Roh used the phrase “magischer realismus” to describe painters who depicted the ordinary with a strange twist. Inspired by Roh’s definition, Latin American fiction authors soon began writing “realismo mágico” stories, and the genre really took root. Since then, magical realism has redefined storytelling around the world, with stories that often delve into politics, identity, and culture, using the surreal to say something very real.What are some books about magical realism?
Magical realism is your ticket to worlds where the usual rules take a backseat. From a time-looping family saga to a voyage across the ocean with a tiger, here are nine magical realism stories worth reading.
1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Welcome to Macondo, a town where history literally repeats itself. This sweeping novel follows seven generations of the Buendía family as they chase love, power, and progress only to get caught in a loop of solitude. Ghosts coexist with the living, a rainstorm lasts for years, and time flows in a circle. In Gabriel García Márquez’s 1967 novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, magical elements sit side-by-side with political turmoil and heartbreak. It’s messy, emotional, and essential reading for anyone curious about how this genre changed modern literature.
2. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
If you like family drama but wish it were a bit more fantastical, Isabel Allende’s debut novel has you covered. The story shines because it balances the supernatural with legitimate history.The House of Spirits spans four generations of the Trueba family, following them through love affairs and class divides. Oh, and patriarch Esteban’s ancestor haunts the family home, and his wife, Clara, can communicate with the dead and move objects with her mind.
3. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
When the Devil, posing as Professor Woland, shows up in 1930s Moscow, he exposes the city elite’s corruption. As surreal happenings spiral, a persecuted author known only as the Master sits in a psychiatric ward after attempting to burn his manuscript, which was attacked by critics. The Master’s lover, Margarita (unhappily married to a bureaucrat), strikes a deal with Woland to fight for the Master’s freedom. Written between 1928 and 1940 and only published in its uncensored form decades later, The Master and Margarita juggles satire, fantasy, and faith.
4. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
In Eva Luna, Isabel Allende introduces us to a girl who turns survival into art. Orphaned early in life and raised by eccentric caregivers, Eva grows up in an unnamed Latin American country that’s shaped by class divides and corruption. She’s a natural storyteller, weaving tales of street urchins, refugees, and drunken grandmothers, but since she’s poor, Eva trades her spun yarns like currency with the people who’re kind to her.What makes this book unique is how Allende uses Eva’s storytelling as the “magical” component of magical realism. Her stories are her escape, and fantastical events occur throughout the novel that the characters accept as normal. The result is part political fable, part coming-of-age novel.
5. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Laura Esquivel’s magical realism classic Like Water for Chocolate is set during the Mexican Revolution. It’s a unique story that explores gender roles, repression, and love.Tita is a young woman who’s madly in love with Pedro. Unfortunately, as the younger daughter, tradition dictates that she must care for her mother, so Pedro marries Tita’s older sister instead. As a master chef, Tita’s heartbreak spills into her cooking, with each dish having a magical effect on those who eat it.
6. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
This magical realism novel by Gabriel García Márquez spans decades. It opens with young lovers Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza in a Colombian city. Rather than marry Florentino, Fermina chooses a wealthy doctor, but since he’s wildly in love, Florentino vows to wait for his soul mate for the rest of his days (even if he does have hundreds of flings along the way).This novel takes the magical realism genre in another direction. Instead of supernatural elements, the author leans on literary devices like heavy symbolism and a non-linear sense of time. It also features plenty of surreal plot points and an omniscient narrator, which helps the book feel more dreamy.
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Beloved opens on a house haunted by more than memories. Sethe, an escaped female slave, killed her daughter years ago rather than let her be captured. But now she’s tormented by her dead child’s ghost. What comes next is a punch in the gut. Morrison uses hauntings as a history lesson, forcing her characters and readers to confront what America often tries to forget.
8. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Nora Seed is stuck in a magical library, somewhere between life and death. There, she browses alternate realities, living out different timelines as she flips pages. Each book she chooses shows her what could’ve been if she’d married her ex, stayed in the band, moved to a new country, or chosen some other path entirely. Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library puts a magical spin on the idea of “what if?” It blurs fantasy and reality, and the result is a book you won’t be able to put down.
9. Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
In Quichotte, Salman Rushdie brings Don Quixote to 21st-century America. The story follows Sam DuChamp, an Indian author of unsuccessful spy novels living in the U.S., who's trying to get out of a writing funk by creating a radically different character: Ismail Smile, a television-obsessed pharmaceutical salesman who recently suffered a stroke. Attempting to win the heart of reality TV star Salma R., Ismail adopts the pen name “Quichotte” and sets off on an absurd quest across the country alongside his imaginary son, Sancho.Rushdie's use of a shifting, surreal narrative is magical realism at its best. And beneath the absurd plot, he offers a scathing commentary on obsession and media addiction.Find popular magical realism books on Everand
Magical realism books remind us that our world (or one just like it) can be just as exciting as those seen in fantasy novels, even if it needs a little sprinkle of the fantastical. This genre endures because it doesn’t help us escape reality; it expands it. If you’re ready for more, dive into Everand’s library of magical realism, fantasy fiction, and beyond. Thousands of ebooks and audiobooks are waiting for you when you start your free trial. Try Everand today and see where the stories take you.
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