Publication year 1945
Genre Short Story, Fiction
Themes Literature, Space, Appearance & Reality, Death
Tags Fantasy, Magical Realism, Latin American Literature
Magical Realism
The Magical Realism Collection highlights narratives that present magical or supernatural elements in a realistic way. Often challenging literary conventions, these selections situate elements of fantasy, such as time travel or the ability to communicate with animals, in otherwise believable settings. This Collection features titles from authors who frequently employ magical realism in their narratives, such as Gabriel García Márquez and Haruki Murakami.
The Aleph
The Amalfi Curse
The Angel's Game
The Antidote
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
The Astonishing Color of After
The Atlas Six
The Autumn of the Patriarch
The Bone Clocks
The Bone People
The Book of Doors
The Book of Form and Emptiness
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
The Book of Sand
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Buried Giant
The Cartographers
The Cat Who Saved Books
The Cemetery of Untold Stories
The Changeling
Publication year 1945
Genre Short Story, Fiction
Themes Literature, Space, Appearance & Reality, Death
Tags Fantasy, Magical Realism, Latin American Literature
Publication year 2025
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Emotions/Behavior: Courage, Grief, Guilt, Love, Gender Identity, Death, Place, Self Discovery, Power & Greed
Tags Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Fantasy
Publication year 2008
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Guilt
Tags Mystery & Crime Fiction, Gothic Literature, World History, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Fantasy
The Angel's Game is a 2008 supernatural mystery novel by the Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Set in Barcelona in the 1920s and 1930s, the book chronicles a young crime novelist's efforts to unravel an occult conspiracy amid the political turmoil of pre-Francoist Spain. It is the second entry in Zafón's Cemetery of Forgotten Books series and a prequel to 2001's Shadow of the Wind, but The Angel's Game is designed to be read as... Read The Angel's Game Summary
Publication year 2025
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Memory, Perseverance, Grief, Regret, Gender Identity, Indigenous Identity, Race, Coming of Age, The Past, Climate, Environment, Self Discovery, Colonialism, Community, Politics & Government, Equality, Justice, Truth & Lies
Tags Historical Fiction, Magical Realism
Competitor... Read The Antidote Summary
Publication year 2002
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Love, Fear, Disability, Family, Colonialism, Community, Fate
Tags Romance, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Relationships, Asian Literature, Modern Classic Fiction, World History
Originally written in German and published in 2002, Jan-Philipp Sendker’s debut novel, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, was translated into English by Kevin Wiliarty in 2006. An international bestseller, the novel received the Indies Choice Honor Award for Best Fiction Novel in 2013. In response to such acclaim, Sendker penned a sequel, A Well-Tempered Heart, in 2012. The novel is international in scope—being written by a German journalist who lived in upstate New York, detailing... Read The Art of Hearing Heartbeats Summary
Publication year 2018
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Memory
Tags Mental Illness, Modern Classic Fiction, Magical Realism, Romance, Fantasy
The Astonishing Color of After, published in 2018, is Emily X.R. Pan’s APALA Honor Award and Walter Honor Award-winning debut young adult fantasy novel. Pan was raised in Illinois by her Taiwanese and Chinese American parents, and closely collaborated with her extended family in Taiwan while researching and writing the novel. Although the novel is not explicitly autobiographical, certain details like Leigh being the only child of a professor and a piano teacher echo the... Read The Astonishing Color of After Summary
Publication year 2020
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Power & Greed, Community, Death
Tags Fantasy, LGBTQ+, Science Fiction, Magical Realism, Mystery & Crime Fiction
Publication year 1975
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Power & Greed, Death, Politics & Government, Justice
Tags Magical Realism, Latin American Literature, World History, Historical Fiction, Classic Fiction
The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez debuted in Spain in 1975. The English translation published in 1976. Márquez’s most notable work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, earned him a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982 and reflects his distinct magical realist style, an artistic genre first recognized in literature in predominantly Latin American writing during the 1940s. The Autumn of the Patriarch, published seven years later, also features Márquez’s magical style and... Read The Autumn of the Patriarch Summary
Publication year 2014
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Good & Evil, Hope, Memory, Gender Identity, Indigenous Identity, Death, Future, Appearance & Reality, Climate, Social Class, War, Loyalty & Betrayal, Power & Greed
Tags Fantasy, Science Fiction, Mystery & Crime Fiction, Modern Classic Fiction, Magical Realism
The Bone Clocks (2014) is a work of literary fantasy and the sixth novel by English author David Mitchell. It was longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, and also received the 2015 World Fantasy Award.Spanning nearly 60 years and featuring five different narrators, The Bone Clocks follows Holly Sykes, a young woman from Kent, England, who becomes embroiled in a secret war between two groups of immortal beings called the Horologists and the Anchorites... Read The Bone Clocks Summary
Publication year 1984
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Love, Gender Identity, Colonialism
Tags Magical Realism, Colonialism & Postcolonialism, Modern Classic Fiction, World History, Historical Fiction, Fantasy
The Bone People (1984) by Keri Hulme was the first New Zealand novel to receive the Booker Prize. It also earned a number of other awards, including the 1984 New Zealand Book Award and the Pegasus Award for Maori Literature. A native of Christchurch, Hulme grew up on the South Island. She comes from a large, diverse, multicultural family of English, Scottish, and Maori descent. After finishing high school, the writer began working as a... Read The Bone People Summary
Publication year 2024
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Emotions/Behavior: Courage, Nostalgia, The Past, Grandparents, Literature, Power & Greed
Tags Fantasy, Science Fiction, Mystery & Crime Fiction, Magical Realism, Romance
Publication year 2021
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Mental Health, Coming of Age, Grief, Art
Tags Magical Realism, Coming of Age, Fantasy, Modern Classic Fiction, Mental Illness
Publication year 1979
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Good & Evil, Politics & Government, Love, Memory, Sexual Identity, The Past, Nation
Tags Philosophy, Magical Realism
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979) by Milan Kundera is a Postmodern novel that blends fiction, essay, and memoir to interrogate memory, history, and personal identity in the shadow of political repression. Structured as seven interconnected parts, the book combines satire, eroticism, and philosophical digression to illustrate how forgetting shapes both private lives and collective history. Although Kundera wrote the novel in Czech, it was banned in his homeland and was first published in... Read The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Summary
Publication year 1975
Genre Short Story, Fiction
Themes Religion & Spirituality, Appearance & Reality, Colonialism
Tags Fantasy, Magical Realism, Latin American Literature, World History, Classic Fiction
“The Book of Sand” by Jorge Luis Borges is a short story dealing with humankind’s inability to grasp the infinite, whether in spirituality or in physical reality. Borges is one of the most well-known Latin American authors, as well as one of the most notable postmodernists of the 20th century. Like much of Borges’s work, “The Book of Sand” contains themes and motifs of the infinite, the nature of literature, spirituality, and postcolonial thought. “The... Read The Book of Sand Summary
Publication year 2007
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Masculinity, Coming of Age
Tags Modern Classic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a 2007 novel by the Dominican American author Junot Díaz. Its title character is a young overweight Dominican American man obsessed with fantasy novels, superhero comics, and tabletop role-playing games. Using Spanish neologisms, magical realism, and references to late-20th-century nerd culture, Díaz weaves a multigenerational family saga chronicling life under the murderous Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo and the subsequent Dominican diaspora to the United States. Widely praised... Read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Summary
Publication year 2015
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Memory
Tags Japanese Literature, Asian Literature, Fantasy, British Literature, World History, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism
Set in Arthurian Britain just after King Arthur’s death,The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro’s seventh novel, is told in four parts and focuses on an elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice, and their journey to find their son. Along the way, they must deal with issues of memory, aging, love, loss and death. While the voice of a narrator frames the novel, much of the story is told from the shifting perspectives of the major characters of... Read The Buried Giant Summary
Publication year 2022
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Power & Greed, Friendship, The Past
Tags Mystery & Crime Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Horror & Suspense, Asian History, Modern Classic Fiction
Publication year 2017
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Animals, Conflict, Emotions/Behavior: Courage, Perseverance, Fear, Hope, Joy, Loneliness, Love, Memory, Coming of Age, Death, Future, The Past, Appearance & Reality, Friendship, Grandparents, Teamwork, Self Discovery, Community, Economics, Education, Art, Beauty, Fate, Good & Evil, Justice, Literature, Loyalty & Betrayal, Order & Chaos, Power & Greed, Science & Technology, Truth & Lies
Tags Fantasy, Magical Realism, Japanese Literature, Contemporary Literature
Publication year 2024
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Memory, Regret, Shame & Pride, Mental Health, Race, Aging, Death, Family, Immigration, Literature, Religion & Spirituality, Gender Identity
Tags Modern Classic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Fantasy
Publication year 2017
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Family, Literature, Truth & Lies
Tags Horror & Suspense, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Science Fiction