1. What is Magical Realism???
Welcome to the fascinating world of
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  What is Magical Realism???

2. What is Magical Realism???
García Márquez’s literary reputation is inseparable from the term.

3. What is Magical Realism???
Magical Realism describes the distinctive blend of fantasy and realism in his and many other Latin American authors’ work.

4. What is Magical Realism???
Magical-realist fiction consists of mostly true-to-life narrative punctuated by moments of whimsical, often symbolic, fantasy described in the same matter-of-fact tone.

5. What is Magical Realism???
Magical realism has become such an established form in Latin America partly because the style is strongly connected to the folkloric storytelling that’s still popular in rural communities.

6. What is Magical Realism???
The genre, therefore, attempts to connect two traditions—the “low” folkloric and the “high” literary—into a seamless whole that embraces the extremes of Latin American culture.

7. What is Magical Realism???
“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is one of the most well-known examples of the magical realist style.

8. What is Magical Realism???
It is in this strange, highly textured, dreamlike setting that the old winged man appears, a living myth, who is nevertheless covered in lice and dressed in rags.

9. What is Magical Realism???
The story combines homely details of Pelayo and Elisenda’s life with fantastic elements such as a flying man and a spider woman to create a tone of equal parts local-color story and fairy tale.

10. What is Magical Realism???
From the beginning of the story, García Márquez’s style comes through in his unusual, almost fairy tale–like description of the relentless rain: “The world had been sad since Tuesday.” There is a mingling of the fantastic and ordinary in all the descriptions, including the swarms of crabs that invade Pelayo and Elisenda’s home and the muddy sand of the beach that in the rainy grayness looks “like powdered light.”

11. This quote from “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is an example of magical realism. What do YOU make of it?
“His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar.”

12. This quote from “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is an example of magical realism. What do YOU make of it?
“What surprised him most, however, was the logic of his wings. They seemed so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn’t understand why other men didn’t have them too.”