Magical Realism

Magical realism is the mode where the ordinary and the impossible share the same room without anyone making a fuss. A grandfather forgets which year it is and gradually walks into a year that does not exist. A neighbourhood loses an hour every Tuesday. A woman finds that the river behind her house has started giving back things people thought were lost. The genre comes out of a deep literary tradition in Latin American writing and has since spread into many other languages and cultures, and the short story is one of its most natural forms. On StorySloth the magical-realist work tends to be quiet, character-led, and unafraid of ambiguity. Authors come from a range of backgrounds and the stories reflect that, with influences ranging from García Márquez and Borges to Murakami to writers working in Caribbean, African, and Eastern European traditions. Use the reading-time filter to pick a length and the tone filter to choose between philosophical, surreal, heartwarming, or dark variations of the form. The genre sits next to fantasy and literary fiction on StorySloth and many pieces could comfortably wear more than one of those labels.