Literary movements are instrumental when it comes to understanding the effects and responses to socio-economic shifts across history. More than just having an understanding of what happened at certain points in time, they give us a unique insight in how people felt about what happened.
Larger movements in art like surrealism, and impressionism pervade across cultures to portray feelings such as a general sense of disillusionment in response to global processes like industrialization and modernization. Other times, certain movements are more associated with one group which shared experiences that are not entirely universal. In the case of magical realism, in its most effective state, the use of this device from Latin American authors has popularized it as a way to bring into conversation the reconciliation of post-colonial/imperial societies with pre-colonial thought and tradition.
According to Brittanica, Magical Realism can be defined as, “a narrative strategy that is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction.” It was popularized around the early 20th century by Latin American writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and, later, Isabella Allende as a way to reconcile a reality defined by colonial orders with the life and culture of the colonized.
Marquez wrote one of the most widely recognized piece of magical realism, “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which follows a family over many generations in a fictional Colombian town as they experience cycles tragedy and upheaval, serving as an allegory for the greater Latin American struggle against colonial structures, imperial exploitation, and cultural disconnection.
The use of magical elements in this literary genre is not for pure entertainment, instead it serves as a representation of reconnecting with a cultural identity that decades of colonial and imperial intervention has attempted to squash. Certain fantastical elements and the treatment of “magic” as an ordinary thing is rooted in pre-colonial folklore and tradition. By including these elements in stories about political and economic turmoil due to imperial intervention, they are portraying the pre-colonial identity and tradition that still persists in the people and the land despite attempts from outside forces to strip it away.
The use of magical realism in literature, and other artistic mediums, is not a uniquely latin American trait. In cultures across the globe, this literary device has been used to grapple with the notions of identity and reconciliation under systems of oppression. Well known authors like Toni Morrison, Salomon Rushdie, and Haruki Murakami have all been attributed with using aspects of magical realism in some of their works. However, the particular use and popularization of this literary concept by Latin American writers has been instrumental in the move towards a greater understanding and acceptance of pre-colonial culture as a whole in the region.