Image above created by Stefano Vitale for Broadway musical production of Like Water for Chocolate.
This is the fifth in a five-part series on Magical Realism. If you haven’t read the previous posts, I recommend starting with Part 1: What Is Magical Realism?
“When you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible.”
–Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
MAGICAL REALISM IN BOOKS AND FILM
There are myriad books and movies that can qualify as magical realism. (Plus some titles that are not quite magic realism but close, as explained in Part 2: What Magical Realism Isn’t. I’ll try to label those when I come across them.)
This list is most definitely a work in progress and not comprehensive. There’s no way I can find every example of magical realism in film and literature without help, so please chime in in the comments with other magic realism titles you are aware of. (Links will be forthcoming when I have time to sit down and add them all, aka, sometime in the nebulous future.)
BOOKS
These are books written for adult readers. Children’s books are grouped in a separate category, below.
Sherman Alexie
- The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Sarah Addison Allen
- Garden Spells
- The Girl Who Chased the Moon
- Peach Keeper
Isabelle Allende
- The House of Spirits*
- Eva Luna
“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.”
–Isabel Allende, Eva Luna
Christina Lopez Barrio
- The House of Impossible Loves
Brunonia Barry
- The Lace Reader
Aimee Bender
- The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Jorge Luis Borges
- Ficciones
Italo Calvino
- Invisible Cities
- If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler
Angela Carter
- Nights at the Circus
- Wise Children
Michael Chabon
- The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
Paulo Coelho
- The Alchemist
- I Sat Down by the River Piedra and Wept
Junot Diaz
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- The Mistress Of Spices*
Laura Esquivel
- Like Water for Chocolate*
F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button*
Jonathan Safran Foer
- Everything Is Illuminated
Neil Gaiman
- The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Günter Grass
- The Tin Drum
Joanne Harris
- Blackberry Wine
- Chocolate*
Mark Helprin
- Winter’s Tale
Alice Hoffman
- Practical Magic*
- Green Angel
Zora Neale Hurston
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
Kimberly Karalius
- Love, Fortunes, and Other Disasters
Sue Monk Kidd
- The Secret Life of Bees*
Stephen King
- The Green Mile*
Gabriel García Márquez
- Love in the Time of Cholera
- One-Hundred Years of Solitude
Yann Martel
- The Life of Pi*
David Mitchell
- Cloud Atlas*
Erin Morgenstern
- The Night Circus
Toni Morrison
- Song of Solomon
- Beloved
Haruki Murakami
- 1Q8
- Kafka on the Shore
Gloria Naylor
- Mama Day
Audrey Niffenegger
- The Time-Traveler’s Wife*
Téa Obreht
- The Tiger’s Wife
Ann Patchett
- The Magician’s Assistant
Thomas Pynchon
- Gravity’s Rainbow
Salman Rushdie
- The Satanic Verses
- Midnight’s Children
“What’s real and what’s true aren’t necessarily the same.”
–Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
Patrick Süskind
- Perfum*
Daniel Wallace
- Big Fish*
Carlos Ruiz Zafrón
- The Shadow of the Wind
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
This includes authors of middle grade and young adult fiction, which fall under the umbrella of children’s literature.
Kathi Appelt
Francesca Lia Block
- Weetzie Bat
Sharon Creech
Roald Dahl
- The BFG*
- Matilda*
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory*
Kate DiCamillo
- Tiger Rising
Lindsay Eager
- Hour of the Bees
A.S. King
Guadalupe Garcia McCall
- Summer of the Mariposas
Hannah Moskowitz
- Teeth
E. Nesbit
- Five Children and It*
Louis Sachar
- Holes*
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- The Little Prince*
Rebecca Stead
- When You Reach Me
*These books have also been made into movies and/or tv shows that are magical realism. But note that not all adaptations are.
FILM
Amélie
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Big Fish+
Chocolat+
Field of Dreams
Five Children and It+
Holes+
The House of Spirits+
Kill Bill
Like Water for Chocolate+
Midnight in Paris
The Mistress of Spices+
Mulholland Drive
The Natural+
O Brother, Where Art Thou?+ (If you weren’t aware, the film is based upon Homer’s The Odyssey. Mind = blown.)
Pan’s Labyrinth
Practical Magic+
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World+ (graphic novel)
The Secret Life of Bees+
The Time Traveler’s Wife+
What Dreams May Come
Animated films by Hayao Miyazaki
TELEVISION
Due South
Haven+ (The Stephen King short story this TV series is based upon, The Colorado Kid, doesn’t have any fantastical elements.)
Lost (Lost is somewhat of a mixed bag, as it includes elements of sci-fi, surrealism, supernatural, and a host of other subgenres and tropes, but running through it all is a sense that there is something more, in this case sinister, to the world in which the characters live, and it is always creeping at the edges of life on the island.)
Northern Exposure
Pushing Daisies
Twin Peaks
+Adapted from a book.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Magic Realism Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism
TV Tropes http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicRealism
What Is Magical Realism, Really? essay by Bruce Holland Rogers http://www.writing-world.com/sf/realism.shtml
Alberto Rios supplemental material to accompany his course on Magical Realism http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/magicalrealism
Magical Realism Links: http://faculty.scf.edu/jonesj/lit2090/magicalrealismlinks.htm
Additional links: http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/magicalrealism/index_files/Page390.htm
Part 1: What Is Magical Realism?
Part 2: What Magical Realism ISN’T
Part 3: Elements of Magical Realism
Part 4: What Magical Realism Is To Me
Part 5: Magical Realism In Books and Film
Add to this list:
If you know of other books or movies with elements of magical realism, please mention them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list (with the caveat that I’ll vet those that aren’t accurately labeled MR, since so many are miscategorized, hence the reason for this series). To keep this list somewhat manageable, I’ll be limiting it to traditionally published titles (i.e., books that have been published by an established press that prints in hard copy, not just POD and/or e-only). If you’re an author whose published works include magical realism titles, feel free to mention your books in the comments, keeping in mind that I’ll delete comments that become too self-promoting.
Also, feel free to correct me if I get any of these wrong. Sadly, I have not had a chance to read/watch everything on this list, so I’ve had to trust lists and recommendations from other people, which aren’t always accurate. #lifegoals
Also also, please do not pitch your book or manuscript to me here. If you want to query me with your magical realism title (after reading this entire series of posts to determine whether your book actually is magic realism, of course), you can find my submission guidelines here. But note that I only represent books for kids and teens.
come on eddy!^
Thank you for this detailed article. I’m definitely going to use this as a reference to begin my journey with magical realism.
I think Mama Day, by Gloria Naylor fits into this category.
Thanks! I added it to the list.
Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” is NOT magical realism. If you’ve read it, please describe any scene with magic. Perhaps you have a perception of her novel different from my own or any other critique I’ve read.
Your definition of magical realism is extensive and appreciated, however you’ve left out essential elements that I find disturbing. It is a dissident voice that speaks truth to power! That can be found in both Marquez & Morrison’s Pulitzer prize winning novels of magical realism.
I find your definition sanitized to fit a version of magical realism acceptable to the status quo.
As I mentioned at the end of the post, I haven’t had the pleasure of reading/viewing all of the items listed here, and “Their Eyes Were Watching God” is one I’ve not yet gotten to, so I relied on lists and conversations with bookish folks who suggested that one for the list.
Also, magical realism encompasses many themes, and not every book or author is going to use all of the elements I mentioned. No book can be everything; when an author tries, it’s usually so convoluted and dense that it’s not worth reading. So the element of dissident voice is a strong characteristic of the Latin Magical Realism movement, as well as other writers of that generation including Morrison, who you mentioned. Those writers lived in times and in places of political and social turmoil, which they infused into their work. Contemporary writers haven’t lived through the same experiences as writers of that era, so their work often doesn’t include those elements. That’s neither a bad nor a good thing. Each book is its own story and will have a different combination of elements that make it magical realism. The fact that a magically realistic book doesn’t include one element doesn’t mean it’s “sanitized”; the author is simply telling a different kind of story.
BUT I do appreciate you pointing out that I neglected to mention one common theme of magical realism—dissidence—so I’m adding that into the earlier post about elements of magical realism. So Y=yes, it is part of magical realism, but it is not the whole.
@Michelle, thanks for this post. @Rosemari, Their Eyes Were Watching God IS magic realism. Two words: talking vultures. If you recall, the talking vulture scene is the most obvious instance of magic, but there are others subtly sprinkled throughout the story. Janie’s sexual awakening with the trees, the cyclical nature of time, etc. The point is, it’s not a fantasy book. It truly is magic realism in that it exists in a space between fantasy and reality, where there is just enough magic to make you question whether an event actually happened. That it is so skillfully done, that magic and reality blend in a way that most people don’t even notice, is testament to Hurston’s genius.
Hi, Michelle
I read this web of all. I have interested about magical realism’s definitions. Some information make me confuse. But I will try to read it thoroughly.
I have a novel, Neverwhere (Gaiman). Do you think it should be magical realism or urban fantasy? By this question I ask based on your principles.
Thank you.
I haven’t read Neverwhere, though it is definitely on my to-be-read list, but from what I understand it’s more urban fantasy than magical realism. But I am happy to be corrected by someone who has read it.
Brian Doyle’s books, Mink River, The Plover, and (especially) Martin Marten.
I loved this series of posts. Thank you!
How about Fludd by Hilary Mantel?
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby is one of my favorite magical realism books. It’s a YA novel about two brothers, a missing girl, and the true meaning of beauty.
Great dissection of magical realism and very helpful!
Hi Michelle,
Thanks for this wonderful resource.
I am particularly interested in magical realism for young readers, so I was thrilled to find your list of titles. I have a couple of suggestions to add:
Nightingale’s Nest by Nikki Loftin
Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan (This beautiful book starts with a fairy tale, so maybe not…?)
Skellig by David Almond
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
One of my favourite (grown-up) books of all time is A Prayer for Owen Meany. Until now, I hadn’t thought of it as Magical Realism, but it ticks quite a few boxes, particularly the eponymous Owen, whose ‘miraculousness’ causes the narrator to adopt a faith. Another favourite is The Secret Life of Bees; I’ll have to reread it now! I can’t remember the magical elements–just the atmosphere, which hums like busy hives in my memory.
Thanks again. I’ve bookmarked these posts so I can return to them for future reference.
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
Some additions:
Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon (the only place a wete-beavet and a Swede have a tree cutting contest and all the local frontier settlers show up to bet on their favorites like it was common)
The Seventh Seal (Dir. Ingmar Bergman)
The Bible? Miracles are pretty common and people live to be hundreds of years old, kings collect foreskins, it’s great stuff lol
George Saunders’s short stories and Lincoln in the Bardo
I’m working on a magical realism short story. It’s not easy. It’s weird how often I write and the stuff just ends up in that style, never on purpose.
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