“I don’t think magic belongs to one culture or another. It is a part of family, history, tradition – it is everywhere.”
– Alice Hoffman
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Recommendations
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, Jorge Amado
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, Jorge Amado
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter
The Magic Toyshop, Angela Carter
The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
Chocolat, Joanne Harris
The World to Come, Dara Horn
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
The Third Policeman, Flann O’Brien
The Famished Road, Ben Okri
Songs of Enchantment, Ben Okri
Stars of the New Curfew, Ben Okri
My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie
Of Bees and Mist, Erick Setiawan
The Girl with Glass Feet, Ali Shaw
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind
Broken Things, Padrika Tarrant
Lighthousekeeping, Jeanette Winterson
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More magical writers
Kathleen Alcalá, Aimee Bender, Louis de Bernières, Jorge Luis Borges, Ray Bradbury, A.S. Byatt, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Peter Carey, Alejo Carpentier, Susanna Clarke, Julio Cortazar, Mia Couto, Katherine Dunn, Louise Erdrich, Jeffrey Eugenides, Connie May Fowler, Janet Frame, Carlos Fuentes, Neil Gaiman, Günter Grass, Mark Helprin, Alice Hoffman, Zora Neale Hurston, Franz Kafka, Kelly Link, Yann Martel, Zakes Mda, Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, Audrey Niffenegger, Milorad Pavic, Lily Prior, Jonathan Safran Foer, José Saramago, Amy Tan, Luisa Valenzuela, Mario Vargas Llosa, Alice Walker, Virginia Woolf, Carlos Ruiz Záfon
Tags: Ali Shaw, Angela Carter, Ann Patchett, Ben Okri, Dara Horn, dreams, Erick Setiawan, Flann O'Brien, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, Italo Calvino, Jeanette Winterson, Joanne Harris, Jorge Amado, Laura Esquivel, magic in literature, magic realism, magic realism novels, magic realism writers, magical realism, Mikhail Bulgakov, Milan Kundera, myths, Orhan Pamuk, Padrika Tarrant, Patrick Suskind, Salman Rushdie, storytellers, storytelling, Tom Robbins
2010/02/20 at 9:23 am
I also enjoyed Zakes Mda’s Cion and Isabel Allende’s Eva Luna and the sequel, The Stories of Eva Luna.
Other favourites
Shaindel Beers:
Things that Fall from the Sky, Kevin Brockmeier
Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino
Pascale Petit:
The Blind Owl, Sedagh Hedayat Iranian
House of the Sleeping Beauties, Yasonari Kawabata
The Lost Steps, Alejo Carpentier
Isobel Dixon mentions Zakes Mda’s Ways of Dying and The Whale Caller, and Etienne van Heerden’s The Long Silence of Mario Salviati.
Sarah Frost:
Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
Kat Thomas recommends Tim Powers.
Deb Scott loves Italo Calvino.
J B Mulligan:
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Invisible Cities
Kelly Cherry:
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Cosmicomics
Susan Hawthorne:
The Lizard’s Tail, Luisa Valenzuela
Padrika Tarrant:
The Street of Crocodiles, Bruno Schulz
2010/02/20 at 7:26 pm
You can add Robertson Davies to the list. I love magic realism and am seriously thinking about whether i can turn my own hand to it,
2010/02/21 at 10:28 am
Sue, that sounds exciting!
2010/02/21 at 4:08 pm
wow, fabulous list. I love the quote, and yes some of these books are my all time favourites. Particularly, The Famished Road, and Nights at the Circus, and of course Padrika’s book. I want to read the girl with the glass feet, it sounds fabulous. Thanks for the list, more for my wanted list…
2010/02/22 at 2:29 am
I absolutely love your list, Michelle. We have similar tastes:) But I will definitely look up the ones I don’t know. Fantastic. And, as always, many thanks for such wonderful information!
2010/03/01 at 12:13 am
Oh, great- now I have even more reasons to hit the bookstore!
What a fantastic list, Michelle- I’ve read a few on there but there’s more that I haven’t- this will keep me busy over the summer!
xo