Description
Presenting the first English translation of Franz Roh's 1925 essay in which the term magical realism was coined, as well as Alejo Carpentier's classic 1949 essay that introduced the concept of lo real maravilloso to the Americas, this anthology begins by tracing the foundations of magical realism from its origins in the art world to its current literary contexts. It offers a broad range of critical perspectives and theoretical approaches to this movement, as well as intensive analyses of various cultural traditions and individual texts from Eastern Europe, Asia, North America, Africa, the Caribbean, and Australia, in addition to those from Latin America. In situating magical realism within the expanse of literary and cultural history, this collection describes a mode of writing that has been a catalyst in the development of new regional literatures and a revitalizing force for more established narrative traditions-writing particularly alive in postcolonial contexts and a major component of postmodernist fiction.
Shows magical realism to be an international movement with a wide-ranging history
About the Author
Lois Parkinson Zamora is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Houston.
Wendy B. Faris is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas, Arlington.
Reviews
"This critical collection combines astute and graceful interpretations of well-known literary texts from the Americas while at the same time displaying a rich global understanding of the broad reach of magical realism. Fashioning subtle rethinkings of the magical realist movement, it will shape discussion of postmodern and postcolonial literary histories."-Jose David Saldivar, University of California, Berkeley
"Zamora and Faris persuasively support their claim that magical realism is not only-or even mainly-a Latin American phenomenon, as is usually thought, but a truly international development of the last half century or so and, a major, perhaps the major, component of postmodernist fiction."-Matei Calinescu, Indiana University
Book Information
ISBN 9780822316404
Author Lois Parkinson Zamora
Format Paperback
Page Count 592
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 816g