Magical Realism

Alice Hoffman’s 2015 novel, The Marriage of Opposites, is a work of historical fiction with magical realism and romance elements. The novel begins in the early 1800s and spans three generations of a Jewish family living on the island of St. Thomas after having fled the Inquisition in Europe. The novel follows a linear timeline and, told from different perspectives, creates a sweeping look at a historically significant moment in time. Hoffman based her tale... Read The Marriage Of Opposites Summary

The Master and Margarita is a novel by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. The novel was written over the course of 12 years but due to the content being deemed controversial by the Soviet Union it was not published until 1966, which was more than two decades after Bulgakov’s death. The novel uses themes, ideas, and imagery from Christianity and the supernatural as well as dark comedy to subtly critique the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin... Read The Master and Margarita Summary

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The Memory Police is a science fiction novel by Yoko Ogawa. The Japanese edition debuted in 1994 and was translated into English by Stephen Snyder in 2019. Under the sci-fi umbrella, the novel more specifically belongs in the dystopian, or Orwellian, speculative fiction subgenre in that the story explores the quiet, quotidian results of scientific experimentation. In doing so, it considers themes like Memory and Manufacturing the Uncanny as well as Alienation Within a Police... Read The Memory Police Summary

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The Miniaturist (2014) is the debut novel of English author and actress Jessie Burton. The novel became an international bestseller following a bidding war in 2013 and won the 2014 Waterstones Book of the Year award. In 2017, a television adaptation aired on BBC One, starring Anya Taylor-Joy.A work of historical fiction, The Miniaturist is set in 17th-century Amsterdam. Narrated in the third person, the story follows the coming-of-age of protagonist Nella Oortman within a... Read The Miniaturist Summary

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The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo was published in 2020. Like Choo's debut novel, The Ghost Bride (2013), The Night Tiger is a mixture of genres, including mythology and historical fiction, and it is a New York Times bestseller. The Night Tiger chronicles the period between May and July of 1931. The setting is colonial-era Malaysia, or “Malaya.”Plot SummaryChinese house servant Ren, is a 10-year-old orphan who’s mourning the death of his master, Dr. MacFarlane... Read The Night Tiger Summary

This guide refers to the story as it appears in the 1965 Norton Library edition of The Overcoat & Other Tales of Good and Evil, translated by David Magarshack.Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Nose,” written between 1835 and 1836, was originally published in The Contemporary, a literary journal owned by famed Russian Romantic poet Alexander Pushkin. A satire on bureaucratic life in the Tsarist capital of St. Petersburg, “The Nose” has since become an important... Read The Nose Summary

In The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013), a dark fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman, a young boy accidentally brings an evil entity from another reality into his world, and he needs the help of three mysterious women to try to get rid of the threat. A number-one New York Times bestseller, the novel won several honors, including the British Book Awards Book of the Year and the Locus Award for best fantasy... Read The Ocean at the End of the Lane Summary

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is a collection of 15 short stories from the award-winning science fiction author, Ken Liu. The collection includes tales of magical realism, futuristic technology, historical fiction, and gritty noir. Simon and Schuster published the book in 2016.Through these narratives, which often switch back from past to present or from story to book excerpts or legends, Liu invokes several diverse worlds with many Asian protagonists. In his stories, he references... Read The Paper Menagerie Summary

British author Jeannette Winterson reimagines events from Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign in her 1987 novel The Passion. The novel is a work of historical metafiction that follows Henri, a young French soldier, and Villanelle, a vivacious Venetian, as they navigate war and love in early 19th-century Europe.The Passion begins in Henri’s voice; he’s a young, bright-eyed soldier in Napoleon’s army who dreamed of being a drummer but is assigned to cook instead. After coming to the... Read The Passion Summary

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Content Warning: This guide contains references to war-related trauma, suicide, and systemic racism and violence against Indigenous Americans.“The Red Convertible” is a short story that explores themes of Coming of Age and The Trauma of War through the lives of two young Chippewa men. Protagonist Lyman Lamartine reflects on his relationship with his brother, Henry Junior, before, during, and after Henry’s time serving in the Vietnam War. Lyman focuses on the period when he and... Read The Red Convertible Summary

“The Rememberer,” by American author Aimee Bender, is a short story that uses conventions of magical realism to explore the themes of Thought Versus Feeling, Love and Obligation, and The Sublime Quality of Loss. First published in the September 1, 1997, issue of The Missouri Review, the piece later appeared in Bender’s award-winning short story collection, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998). Bender uses first-person point-of-view to tell the story of Annie, a woman... Read The Rememberer Summary

The Rest of Us Just Live Here, a novel by critically acclaimed young adult (YA) author Patrick Ness, tells the story of Mikey, a high school senior living in a fictional town in the state of Washington. The novel follows Mikey as graduation approaches and he navigates the anxieties and uncertainties of love, friendship, and the fear of leaving behind everything he’s grown up with. Ness, the author of the widely lauded Chaos Walking trilogy... Read The Rest of Us Just Live Here Summary

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