Fiction where magical elements exist within an otherwise realistic world, treated as completely ordinary by the characters and narrative.
Magical realism weaves the impossible into the fabric of everyday life without surprise or explanation. A woman is so beautiful that butterflies follow her everywhere. A man levitates while hanging laundry. Dead relatives appear at the dinner table. The key distinction from fantasy: nobody is amazed. The magical elements are presented as unremarkable, woven into the realistic texture of the world. The genre has deep roots in Latin American literature and has spread globally.
Magical realism teaches you that the impossible can serve emotional and thematic truth rather than plot. It's a powerful tool for making internal experiences (grief, love, memory, cultural identity) visible and physical. Understanding the genre also requires engaging with its cultural origins, particularly Latin American literary traditions, rather than treating it as 'fantasy lite.'
The foundational text: seven generations of a family in a town where miracles happen as naturally as rain.
A ghost made flesh, the embodiment of slavery's trauma, treated as both supernatural and absolutely real.
A family saga where clairvoyance and telekinesis exist alongside political revolution and domestic life.
In fantasy, magic is extraordinary. In magical realism, it's ordinary. The characters don't react to the impossible because to them, it isn't impossible.
Magical realism has specific roots in Latin American, African, and postcolonial literatures. Understand those traditions before adopting the form.
Write a scene set in a completely realistic, contemporary setting. Add one impossible element: a color nobody can name, a person who weighs nothing, a building that's bigger inside than outside. Do not have any character notice or comment on it. Write as though this is perfectly normal. Feel how the ordinary and extraordinary coexist.