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124-694: Isabel Angelica Allende Llona ( Latin American Spanish: [isaˈβel aˈʝende] ; born 2 August 1942) is a Chilean-American writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the magical realism genre, is known for novels such as The House of the Spirits ( La casa de los espíritus , 1982) and City of the Beasts ( La ciudad de las bestias , 2002), which have been commercially successful. Allende has been called "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author." In 2004, Allende

248-435: A painterly style known as Neue Sachlichkeit ('New Objectivity'), an alternative to expressionism that was championed by German museum director Gustav Hartlaub . Roh identified magic realism's accurate detail, smooth photographic clarity, and portrayal of the 'magical' nature of the rational world; it reflected the uncanniness of people and our modern technological environment. He also believed that magic realism

372-488: A "liberated" person. Her history of oppression and liberation is thematically found in much of her fiction, where women contest the ideals of patriarchal leaders. In Venezuela she was a columnist for El Nacional , a major national newspaper. In 1978, she began a temporary separation from Miguel Frías. She lived in Spain for two months, then returned to her marriage. She divorced her first husband, Miguel Frías, in 1987. During

496-464: A "literary legend" in a 2007 article naming her the third most influential Latino leader in the world. Her work has drawn some negative criticism. In an article published in Entre paréntesis , Roberto Bolaño called Allende's literature anemic, comparing it to "a person on his deathbed", and later called her "a writing machine, not a writer". Literary critic Harold Bloom said that Allende only "reflects

620-434: A balance between saleability and intellectual integrity. Wendy Faris, talking about magic realism as a contemporary phenomenon that leaves modernism for postmodernism, says, "Magic realist fictions do seem more youthful and popular than their modernist predecessors, in that they often (though not always) cater with unidirectional story lines to our basic desire to hear what happens next. Thus they may be more clearly designed for

744-678: A book, The House of the Spirits (1982); this work intended to exorcise the ghosts of the Pinochet dictatorship . The book was rejected by numerous Latin American publishers, but eventually published in Buenos Aires . The book soon ran to more than two dozen editions in Spanish and was translated into a score of languages. Allende was compared to Gabriel García Márquez as an author in the style known as magical realism . Although Allende

868-422: A continent of symbiosis, mutations ... mestizaje , engenders the baroque", made explicit by elaborate Aztec temples and associative Nahuatl poetry. These mixing ethnicities grow together with the American baroque; the space in between is where the "marvelous real" is seen. Marvelous: not meaning beautiful and pleasant, but extraordinary, strange, and excellent. Such a complex system of layering—encompassed in

992-424: A culturally specific project, by identifying for his readers those (non-modern) societies where myth and magic persist and where Magic Realism might be expected to occur. There are objections to this analysis. Western rationalism models may not actually describe Western modes of thinking and it is possible to conceive of instances where both orders of knowledge are simultaneously possible. Alejo Carpentier originated

1116-489: A determinate period, and that afterwards everybody will have forgotten her". Novelist Gonzalo Contreras said that "she commits a grave error, to confuse commercial success with literary quality". Allende told El Clarín that she recognizes she has not always received good reviews in Chile, stating that Chilean intellectuals "detest" her. However, she disagrees with these assessments: The fact people think that when you sell

1240-428: A gigantic insect.' When I read that line I thought to myself I didn't know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago." He also cited the stories told to him by his grandmother: "She told me things that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness. She did not change her expression at all when telling her stories, and everyone

1364-463: A journalist, she once sought an interview with poet Pablo Neruda . Neruda agreed to the interview, and he told her that she had too much imagination to be a journalist and should be a novelist instead. He also advised her to compile her satirical columns in book form. She did so, and this became her first published book. In 1973, Allende's play El Embajador played in Santiago a few months before she

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1488-484: A kind of heightened reality where elements of the miraculous can appear while seeming natural and unforced. She suggests that by disassociating himself and his writings from Roh's painterly magic realism, Carpentier aimed to show how—by virtue of Latin America's varied history, geography, demography, politics, myths, and beliefs—improbable and marvelous things are made possible. Furthermore, Carpentier's meaning

1612-491: A lesson. Says the Post of Lewis, "The fabulist ... illuminates the nature of things through a tale both he and his auditors, or readers, know to be an ingenious analogical invention." Italo Calvino is an example of a writer in the genre who uses the term fabulist . Calvino is best known for his book trilogy, Our Ancestors , a collection of moral tales told through surrealist fantasy. Like many fabulist collections, his work

1736-443: A literary artist and humanitarian." In 2014, Allende received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Harvard University for her contributions to literature. In 2019, she married Roger Cukras, a lawyer from New York. Although not as openly political as some of her contemporary writers, she expressed contempt for Donald Trump and his policies following his election in 2016, and she later endorsed Democrat Joe Biden during

1860-553: A lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insult to the readership. I get a little angry when people try to say such a thing. There was a review of my last book in one American paper by a professor of Latin American studies and he attacked me personally for the sole reason that I sold a lot of books. That is unforgivable. It has been said that "Allende's impact on Latin American and world literature cannot be overestimated." The Los Angeles Times called Allende "a genius", and she has received many international awards, including

1984-549: A magical realism." The critical perspective towards magical realism as a conflict between reality and abnormality stems from the Western reader's disassociation with mythology , a root of magical realism more easily understood by non-Western cultures. Western confusion regarding magical realism is due to the "conception of the real" created in a magical realist text: rather than explain reality using natural or physical laws, as in typical Western texts, magical realist texts create

2108-432: A magical realist whatsoever (Ángel Flores), those that call him "a mágicorealista writer with no mention of his 'lo real maravilloso' (Gómez Gil, Jean Franco, Carlos Fuentes)", and those that use the two terms interchangeably (Fernando Alegria, Luis Leal, Emir Rodriguez Monegal). Ángel Flores states that magical realism is an international commodity but that it has a Hispanic birthplace, writing that "Magical realism

2232-499: A means to create a collective consciousness by "opening new mythical and magical perspectives on reality", and used his writings to inspire an Italian nation governed by Fascism . Uslar Pietri was closely associated with Roh's form of magic realism and knew Bontempelli in Paris. Rather than follow Carpentier's developing versions of "the (Latin) American marvelous real", Uslar Pietri's writings emphasize "the mystery of human living amongst

2356-498: A nightmare and contrasts it to a positive beginning ... Hoffmann's dream was free, graceful, attractive, cheerful to infinity. Reading his fairy tales, you understand that Hoffmann is, in essence, a kind, clear person, because he could tell a child such things as The Nutcracker or The Royal Bride – these pearls of human fantasy. German magic-realist paintings influenced the Italian writer Massimo Bontempelli , who has been called

2480-432: A piece of narrative in which there is a constant faltering between belief and non-belief in the supernatural or extraordinary event. In Leal's view, writers of fantasy literature, such as Borges , can create "new worlds, perhaps new planets. By contrast, writers like García Márquez, who use magical realism, don't create new worlds, but suggest the magical in our world." In magical realism, the supernatural realm blends with

2604-554: A pragmatic, practical and tangible approach to reality and an acceptance of magic and superstition" within an environment of differing cultures. Magic realism was later used to describe the uncanny realism by such American painters as Ivan Albright , Peter Blume , Paul Cadmus , Gray Foy , George Tooker , and Viennese-born Henry Koerner , among other artists during the 1940s and 1950s. However, in contrast with its use in literature, magic realist art does not often include overtly fantastic or magical content, but rather, it looks at

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2728-518: A reality "in which the relation between incidents, characters, and setting could not be based upon or justified by their status within the physical world or their normal acceptance by bourgeois mentality." Guatemalan author William Spindler 's article, "Magic realism: A Typology", suggests that there are three kinds of magic realism, which however are by no means incompatible: Spindler's typology of magic realism has been criticized as: [A]n act of categorization which seeks to define Magic Realism as

2852-421: A sense of confusion and mystery. For example, when reading One Hundred Years of Solitude , the reader must let go of pre-existing ties to conventional exposition , plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc., to strive for a state of heightened awareness of life's connectedness or hidden meanings in order for the book to begin to make sense. Luis Leal articulates this feeling as "to seize

2976-534: A short time in Chile, she also had a job translating romance novels from English to Spanish. However, she was fired for making unauthorized changes to the dialogue of the heroines to make them sound more intelligent, as well as altering the Cinderella ending to allow the heroines to find more independence and do good in the world. Allende's and Frías's daughter Paula was born in 1963; she died in 1992. In 1966, Allende again returned to Chile, where her son Nicolás

3100-720: A son and a daughter. Reportedly, "Allende married early, into an Anglophile family and a kind of double life: at home she was the obedient wife and mother of two; in public she became, after a spell translating Barbara Cartland , a moderately well-known TV personality, a dramatist and a journalist on a feminist magazine." From 1959 to 1965, Allende worked with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Santiago, then in Brussels , and elsewhere in Europe. For

3224-457: A synonym for fantasy fiction . Gene Wolfe said, "magic realism is fantasy written by people who speak Spanish", and Terry Pratchett said magic realism "is like a polite way of saying you write fantasy". Animist realism is a term for conceptualizing the African literature that has been written based on the strong presence of the imaginary ancestor, the traditional religion and especially

3348-497: A trend within Romanticism that contained "a European magical realism where the realms of fantasy are continuously encroaching and populating the realms of the real". In the words of Anatoly Lunacharsky : Unlike other romantics, Hoffmann was a satirist. He saw the reality surrounding him with unusual keenness, and in this sense he was one of the first and sharpest realists. The smallest details of everyday life, funny features in

3472-592: A visit to California on a book tour in 1988, Allende met her second husband, California attorney and novelist William C. "Willie" Gordon. They married in July 1988. In 1994, she was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Order of Merit , the first woman to receive this honor. Allende resides in San Rafael, California . Most of her family lives nearby, with her son, his second wife, and her grandchildren just down

3596-468: A vivir mucho tiempo, como muchos enfermos, pero ahora está viva. In other words, Allende's literature is bad, but it is alive, it is anemic, like many Latin Americans, but it is alive. She will not live long, like many sick people, but she is alive now. Isabel Allende es una muy mala escritora y sólo refleja un período determinado. Después todos se olvidarán de ella. ( Harold Bloom ) Isabel Allende

3720-568: A woman with a sense of magic. In October 2010, the DKK 500,000 prize went to Scottish fantasy writer JK Rowling - Harry Potter's mother. Magic realism The term magic realism is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous, and Matthew Strecher (1999) defines it as "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe." The term and its wide definition can often become confused, as many writers are categorized as magical realists. The term

3844-1011: A year, I communicate with Chile every day through Skype with my mother, I know what is happening and when they ask me 'what are you' I automatically say 'Chilean'. I live in America, but I feel deeply Chilean in the way of living, of being: I am bossy, messy, dominant, intrusive, hospitable, tribal. ¿Cómo resume su vida de exilio en Caracas? Los chilenos nos beneficiamos de Venezuela como miles de miles de otros de Argentina, Uruguay. En ese momento Venezuela era el segundo país más rico del mundo. Era un país generoso, abierto. Por eso siento mucho dolor con lo que está pasando. Tengo muchos amigos allí, mi hijo se casó con una venezolana, mis nietos nacieron en Venezuela, mi hermano con toda su familia vive en Venezuela. Mis mejores amigos son de Venezuela. How do you summarize your life in exile in Caracas? We Chileans benefit from Venezuela like thousands of thousands of others from Argentina, Uruguay. At that time Venezuela

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3968-657: A year, Magic Realism was being applied to the prose of European authors in the literary circles of Buenos Aires." Jorge Luis Borges inspired and encouraged other Latin American writers in the development of magical realism – particularly with his first magical realist publication, Historia universal de la infamia in 1935. Between 1940 and 1950, magical realism in Latin America reached its peak, with prominent writers appearing mainly in Argentina. Alejo Carpentier's novel The Kingdom of This World , published in 1949,

4092-566: Is Haruki Murakami . In Chinese literature the best-known writer of the style is Mo Yan , the 2012 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature for his " hallucinatory realism ". In Polish literature , magic realism is represented by Olga Tokarczuk , the 2018 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature. The term first appeared as the German magischer Realismus ('magical realism'). In 1925, German art critic Franz Roh used magischer Realismus to refer to

4216-876: Is an international commodity. Some have argued that connecting magical realism to postmodernism is a logical next step. To further connect the two concepts, there are descriptive commonalities between the two that Belgian critic Theo D'haen addresses in his essay, "Magical Realism and Postmodernism". While authors such as Günter Grass , Thomas Bernhard , Peter Handke , Italo Calvino , John Fowles , Angela Carter , John Banville , Michel Tournier , Willem Brakman , and Louis Ferron might be widely considered postmodernist, they can "just as easily be categorized ... magic realist". A list has been compiled of characteristics one might typically attribute to postmodernism, but that also could describe literary magic realism: " self-reflexiveness , metafiction, eclecticism , redundancy, multiplicity, discontinuity, intertextuality , parody ,

4340-602: Is a continuation of the romantic realist tradition of Spanish language literature and its European counterparts." There is disagreement between those who see magical realism as a Latin American invention and those who see it as the global product of a postmodern world. Guenther concludes, "Conjecture aside, it is in Latin America that [magic realism] was primarily seized by literary criticism and was, through translation and literary appropriation, transformed." Magic realism has been internationalized: dozens of non-Hispanic writers are categorized as such, and many believe that it truly

4464-417: Is a development out of Surrealism that expresses a genuinely "Third World" consciousness. It deals with what Naipaul has called "half-made" societies, in which the impossibly old struggles against the appallingly new, in which public corruptions and private anguishes are somehow more garish and extreme than they ever get in the so-called "North", where centuries of wealth and power have formed thick layers over

4588-696: Is a memoir of her childhood in Santiago and the years she spent in exile. It is written as an anguished letter to her daughter. In 1991 an error in Paula's medication resulted in severe brain damage, leaving her in a persistent vegetative state. Allende spent months at Paula's bedside before learning that a hospital mishap had caused the brain damage. Allende had Paula moved to a hospital in California where she died on 6 December 1992. Allende's novels have been translated into more than 42 languages and sold more than 77 million copies. Her 2008 book, The Sum of Our Days ,

4712-557: Is a memoir. It focuses on her life with her family, which includes her grown son, Nicolás; second husband, William Gordon; and several grandchildren. A novel set in New Orleans , Island Beneath the Sea , was published in 2010. In 2011 came El cuaderno de Maya ( Maya's Notebook ), in which the setting alternates between Berkeley, California , and Chiloé in Chile, as well as Las Vegas , Nevada . Latino Leaders Magazine called her

4836-420: Is a unidimensional world. The implied author believes that anything can happen here, as the entire world is filled with supernatural beings and situations to begin with. Fairy tales are a good example of marvelous literature. The important idea in defining the marvelous is that readers understand that this fictional world is different from the world where they live. The "marvelous" one-dimensional world differs from

4960-417: Is a very bad writer and only reflects a certain period. Then everyone will forget about her. Me parece una mala escritora, simple y llanamente, y llamarla escritora es darle cancha. Ni siquiera creo que Isabel Allende sea una escritora, es una escribidora. ( Roberto Bolaño ) She seems to me to be a bad writer, plain and simple, and to call her a writer is to give her court. I don't even think Isabel Allende

5084-808: Is a writer, she is a hack. Ella incurre en un gravísimo error, confundir éxito de ventas con calidad literaria. ( Gonzalo Contreras ) She makes a huge mistake, mistaking bestseller for literary quality. Fysisk rager Isabel Allende ikke særlig højt op i billedet, men gennem mange år har hun haft stor litterær betydning for læsere over hele verden. Derfor er det en stolt priskomité, der fortæller Fyens Stiftstidende, at den chilenskfødte forfatter har sagt ja til i september næste år at modtage H.C. Andersen Litteraturpris 2012 i Odense. ... Det er anden gang, H.C. Andersen Litteraturpris uddeles til en kvinde med sans for det magiske. I oktober 2010 gik prisen, der er på 500.000 kroner, til den skotske fantasy-forfatter, J.K. Rowling - Harry Potters mor. Physically, Isabel Allende

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5208-455: Is also encountered in novels from other continents, such as those of Günter Grass , Salman Rushdie and Milan Kundera . All these writers have lived through great historical convulsions and wrenching personal upheavals, which they feel cannot be adequately represented in a discourse of undisturbed realism", citing Kundera's 1979 novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting as an exemplar." Michiko Kakutani writes that "The transactions between

5332-470: Is created in magic(al) realism works is a fictional world close to reality, marked by a strong presence of the unusual and the fantastic, in order to point out, among other things, the contradictions and shortcomings of society. The presence of the element of the fantastic does not violate the manifest coherence of a work that is characteristic of traditional realist literature. Fantastic (magical) elements appear as part of everyday reality, function as saviors of

5456-474: Is in this simplicity, this innocence, this magic that Şerban finds any hope for contemporary theatre at all." Fantasy and magic realism are commonly held to be unrelated apart from some shared inspirations in mythology and folklore. Amaryll Beatrice Chanady distinguishes magical realist literature from fantasy literature ("the fantastic") based on differences between three shared dimensions: the use of antinomy (the simultaneous presence of two conflicting codes),

5580-709: Is not very prominent in the picture, but for many years she has had a great literary significance for readers all over the world. Therefore, it is a proud prize committee that tells Fyens Stiftstidende that the Chilean-born author has agreed to receive the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Prize 2012 in Odense in September next year. ... This is the second time that Hans Christian Andersen Literature Prize has been awarded to

5704-490: Is often characterised as an important harbinger of magic realism, which reached its most canonical incarnation in Gabriel García Marquez 's novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). García Marquez cited Kafka 's " The Metamorphosis " as a formative influence: "The first line almost knocked me out of bed. It begins: 'As Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into

5828-441: Is often cited as a practitioner of magical realism, her works also display elements of post-Boom literature . Allende also holds to a very strict writing routine. She writes on a computer, working Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 19:00 "I always start on 8 January", Allende stated, "a tradition she began in 1981 with the letter she wrote to her dying grandfather that would become The House of the Spirits ." Allende's book Paula (1995)

5952-490: Is often classified as allegories for children. Calvino wanted fiction, like folk tales, to act as a teaching device. "Time and again, Calvino insisted on the 'educational potential' of the fable and its function as a moral exemplum", wrote journalist Ian Thomson about the Italian Fabulist. While reviewing the work of Romanian-born American theater director Andrei Şerban , New York Times critic Mel Gussow coined

6076-469: Is often confused with magical realism as they both explore illogical or non-realist aspects of humanity and existence. There is a strong historical connection between Franz Roh's concept of magic realism and surrealism, as well as the resulting influence on Carpentier's marvelous reality; however, important differences remain. Surrealism "is most distanced from magical realism [in that] the aspects that it explores are associated not with material reality but with

6200-597: Is often seen as a predecessor of magical realists, with only Flores considering him a true magical realist. After Flores's essay, there was a resurgence of interest in marvelous realism, which, after the Cuban revolution of 1959 , led to the term magical realism being applied to a new type of literature known for matter-of-fact portrayal of magical events. Literary magic realism originated in Latin America. Writers often traveled between their home country and European cultural hubs, such as Paris or Berlin, and were influenced by

6324-532: Is part of Grupo de Diarios América, to which other Latin American newspapers belong, such as El Tiempo (Colombia), El Mercurio (Chile) and La Nación (Argentina). El Nacional has been awarded the National Journalism Prize as a print media in 1959, 1977, 1981 and 2000. The newspaper's first director was poet Antonio Arráiz (1903–1962). In the newspaper have contributed many of the most recognized Venezuelan writers. Arturo Úslar Pietri , one of

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6448-402: Is that Latin America is a land filled with marvels, and that "writing about this land automatically produces a literature of marvelous reality." "The marvelous" may be easily confused with magical realism, as both modes introduce supernatural events without surprising the implied author. In both, these magical events are expected and accepted as everyday occurrences. However, the marvelous world

6572-493: The Washington Square Review regarding fabulism. "Shouldn't our fiction reflect that?" While magical realism is traditionally used to refer to works that are Latin American in origin, fabulism is not tied to any specific culture. Rather than focusing on political realities, fabulism tends to focus on the entirety of the human experience through the mechanization of fairy tales and myths. This can be seen in

6696-534: The 2020 presidential election . She has also regularly defended the record of her father's cousin, Salvador Allende. Allende started the Isabel Allende Foundation on 9 December 1996, in honor of her daughter, Paula Frías Allende , who fell into a coma after complications of the disease porphyria led to her hospitalization. Paula was 29 years old when she died in 1992. The foundation is "dedicated to supporting programs that promote and preserve

6820-562: The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize , granted to writers "who have contributed to the beauty of the world". Vengo a Chile por lo menos tres veces al año, me comunico con Chile todos los días a través de Skype con mi mamá, estoy enterada de lo que pasa y cuando me preguntan 'qué eres' digo automáticamente 'chilena'. Vivo en América, pero me siento profundamente chilena en la manera de vivir, de ser: soy mandona, metete, dominante, intrusa, hospitalaria, tribal. I come to Chile at least three times

6944-651: The Venezuelan presidential election in 2018 , the newspaper had their Hypertext Transfer Protocol momentarily censored by the state-run CANTV from 7 June to 11 June 2018. The newspaper has had its website continuously censored in Venezuela, being described as one of the last independent media organizations in Venezuela. The newspaper faced legal issues after it republished reporting from Spanish newspaper ABC about Bolivarian government official Diosdado Cabello being investigated for alleged drug trafficking. After

7068-472: The animism of African cultures. The term was used by Pepetela (1989) and Harry Garuba (2003) to be a new conception of magic realism in African literature. El Nacional (Caracas) El Nacional is a Venezuelan publishing company under the name C.A. Editorial El Nacional, most widely known for its El Nacional newspaper and website. It, along with Últimas Noticias and El Universal , are

7192-470: The baroque by a lack of emptiness, a departure from structure or rules, and an "extraordinary" abundance ( plenitude ) of disorienting detail. (He cites Mondrian as its opposite.) From this angle, Carpentier views the baroque as a layering of elements, which translates easily into the postcolonial or transcultural Latin-American atmosphere that he emphasizes in The Kingdom of this World . "America,

7316-405: The bidimensional world of magical realism because, in the latter, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world (arriving at the combination of two layers of reality: bidimensionality). While some use the terms magical realism and lo real maravilloso interchangeably, the key difference lies in the focus. Critic Luis Leal attests that Carpentier was an originating pillar of

7440-401: The story within a story while reading it, making them self-conscious of their status as readers—and secondly, where the textual world enters into the reader's (real) world. Good sense would negate this process, but "magic" is the flexible convention that allows it. Magic realist literature tends to leave out explanation of its magical element or obfuscate elements of the story, creating

7564-678: The 1920s and 30s that focused on the mystery and reality of how we live. Luis Leal attests that Uslar Pietri seemed to have been the first to use the term realismo mágico in literature, in 1948. There is evidence that Mexican writer Elena Garro used the same term to describe the works of E. T. A. Hoffmann , but dismissed her own work as a part of the genre. French-Russian Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier , who rejected Roh's magic realism as tiresome pretension, developed his related concept lo real maravilloso ('marvelous realism') in 1949. Maggie Ann Bowers writes that marvelous-realist literature and art expresses "the seemingly opposed perspectives of

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7688-498: The Attorney General Ramón Escovar Salom and journalist José Vicente Rangel , culminating in his impeachment in 1993. The newspaper would likewise be critical of Hugo Chávez government. In its 10 April 2002 editorial (the day before a failed right-wing coup d'état against President Chávez), it described Chávez as "a contumacious liar" and called upon the citizens that "today we have to go out to

7812-707: The German roots of the term, and how an earlier magic realist art is related to a later magic realist literature; meanwhile, magical realism is often associated with Latin-American literature , including founders of the genre, particularly the authors Gabriel García Márquez , Isabel Allende , Jorge Luis Borges , Juan Rulfo , Miguel Ángel Asturias , Elena Garro , Mireya Robles , Rómulo Gallegos and Arturo Uslar Pietri . In English literature , its chief exponents include Neil Gaiman , Salman Rushdie , Alice Hoffman , Louis De Bernieres , Nick Joaquin , and Nicola Barker . In Russian literature , key proponents include Mikhail Bulgakov , Soviet dissident Andrei Sinyavsky and

7936-498: The Latin-American "boom" novel, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude —aims towards "translating the scope of America". Magical realism plot lines characteristically employ hybrid multiple planes of reality that take place in "inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and Western and indigenous". This trait centers on the reader's role in literature. With its multiple realities and specific reference to

8060-586: The Main Avenue of Los Cortijos de Lourdes, along with new technological innovations. On 13 August 2010, El Nacional printed a photograph of corpses lying on stretchers and on the floor of the Caracas morgue  [ es ] to denounce the situation of crime in the country. As a result, police officers searched the newspaper headquarters and a court forbid El Nacional, along with Tal Cual , to publish any violent images or information. The court's decision

8184-488: The art movement of the time. Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier and Venezuelan Arturo Uslar-Pietri , for example, were strongly influenced by European artistic movements, such as Surrealism , during their stays in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. One major event that linked painterly and literary magic realisms was the translation and publication of Franz Roh's book into Spanish by Spain's Revista de Occidente in 1927, headed by major literary figure José Ortega y Gasset . "Within

8308-432: The concept of magical realism, each writer gives expression to a reality he observes in the people. To me, magical realism is an attitude on the part of the characters in the novel toward the world", or toward nature. Leal and Guenther both quote Arturo Uslar-Pietri , who described "man as a mystery surrounded by realistic facts. A poetic prediction or a poetic denial of reality. What for lack of another name could be called

8432-464: The context of American theatre. He wrote that the Fabulist style allowed Şerban to neatly combine technical form and his own imagination. Through directing fabulist works, Şerban can inspire an audience with innate goodness and romanticism through the magic of theatre. "The New Fabulism has allowed Şerban to pursue his own ideals of achieving on sage the naivete of a children's theater", wrote Menta. "It

8556-517: The disconcerting fictitious world". The narrator is indifferent, a characteristic enhanced by this absence of explanation of fantastic events; the story proceeds with "logical precision" as if nothing extraordinary had taken place. Magical events are presented as ordinary occurrences; therefore, the reader accepts the marvelous as normal and common. In his essay "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real", Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier defines

8680-426: The dissolution of character and narrative instance, the erasure of boundaries, and the destabilization of the reader". To further connect the two, magical realism and postmodernism share the themes of post-colonial discourse, in which jumps in time and focus cannot really be explained with scientific but rather with magical reasoning; textualization (of the reader); and metafiction. Concerning attitude toward audience,

8804-408: The dozens of anti-government newspapers in the nation that have stopped printing due to paper and toner shortages. It became an exclusively online newspaper after the date, and has been blocked by internet providers since early 2022. The first edition of El Nacional circulated on 3 August 1943, founded by Miguel Otero Silva in Caracas, with innovations such as the replacement of the editorial by

8928-444: The entertainment of readers." When attempting to define what something is , it is often helpful to define what something is not . Many literary critics attempt to classify novels and literary works in only one genre, such as "romantic" or "naturalist", not always taking into account that many works fall into multiple categories. Much discussion is cited from Maggie Ann Bowers' book Magic(al) Realism , wherein she attempts to delimit

9052-505: The exterior world and offer direct allegorical interpretations. Austrian-American child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim suggested that fairy tales have psychological merit. They are used to translate trauma into a context that people can more easily understand and help to process difficult truths. Bettelheim posited that the darkness and morality of traditional fairy tales allowed children to grapple with questions of fear through symbolism. Fabulism helped to work through these complexities and, in

9176-524: The extraordinary and the mundane that occur in so much Latin American fiction are not merely a literary technique, but also a mirror of a reality in which the fantastic is frequently part of everyday life." Magical realism often mixes history and fantasy, as in Salman Rushdie 's Midnight's Children , in which the children born at midnight on August 15, 1947, the moment of India's independence, are telepathically linked. Irene Guenther (1995) tackles

9300-660: The family moved often. Huidobro was a diplomat appointed to Bolivia and Beirut. In La Paz , Bolivia , Allende attended an American private school; and in Beirut, Lebanon , she attended an English private school. The family returned to Chile in 1958, where Allende was also briefly home-schooled. In her youth, she read widely, particularly the works of William Shakespeare . In 1970, Salvador Allende appointed Huidobro as ambassador to Argentina. While living in Chile, Allende finished her secondary studies and met engineering student Miguel Frías whom she married in 1962. They had two children,

9424-572: The first to apply magic realism to writing, aiming to capture the fantastic, mysterious nature of reality. In 1926, he founded the magic realist magazine 900.Novecento, and his writings influenced Belgian magic realist writers Johan Daisne and Hubert Lampo . Roh's magic realism also influenced writers in Hispanic America , where it was translated in 1927 as realismo mágico . Venezuelan writer Arturo Uslar-Pietri , who had known Bontempelli, wrote influential magic-realist short stories in

9548-543: The fundamental rights of women and children to be empowered and protected." Beginning in 1967, Allende was on the editorial staff of Paula magazine and the children's magazine Mampato from 1969 to 1974, where she later became the editor. She published two children's stories, "La Abuela Panchita" and "Lauchas y Lauchones", as well as a collection of articles, Civilice a Su Troglodita . She also worked in Chilean television production for channels 7 and 13 from 1970 to 1974. As

9672-425: The government pressed charges against El Nacional , proposing the payment of a fine of 1 billion bolívares, Cabello replied to the newspaper's publishing of Venezuela's hyperinflation figures stating "if it was a billion bolívares, let's ... put five zeros next to it". Cabello targeted the newspaper even further, stating in late-September 2018 that he sought to acquire the newspaper's headquarters and convert it into

9796-657: The hill, in the house she and her second husband vacated. She separated from Gordon in April 2015. In 2006, she was one of the eight flag bearers at the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. She presented the talk Tales of Passion at TED 2007. In 2008, Allende received the honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters from San Francisco State University for her "distinguished contributions as

9920-467: The human against the onslaught of conformism, evil and totalitarianism. Moreover, in magical realism works we find objective narration characteristic of traditional, 19th-century realism." As a simple point of comparison, Roh's differentiation between expressionism and post-expressionism as described in German Art in the 20th Century, may be applied to magic realism and realism. Realism pertains to

10044-433: The imagination and the mind, and in particular it attempts to express the 'inner life' and psychology of humans through art". It seeks to express the sub-conscious, unconscious, the repressed and inexpressible. Magical realism, on the other hand, rarely presents the extraordinary in the form of a dream or a psychological experience . "To do so", Bowers writes, "takes the magic of recognizable material reality and places it into

10168-452: The inarguable discourse of "privileged centers of literature". This is a mode primarily about and for "ex-centrics": the geographically, socially, and economically marginalized. Therefore, magic realism's "alternative world" works to correct the reality of established viewpoints (like realism , naturalism , modernism ). Magic-realist texts, under this logic, are subversive texts, revolutionary against socially-dominant forces. Alternatively,

10292-411: The inclusion of events that cannot be integrated into a logical framework, and the use of authorial reticence. In fantasy, the presence of the supernatural code is perceived as problematic, something that draws special attention—where in magical realism, the presence of the supernatural is accepted. In fantasy, while authorial reticence creates a disturbing effect on the reader, it works to integrate

10416-437: The lack of paper that the printed media in Venezuela is going through, although the website of this newspaper would be visible until November 2016. The newspaper, despite having various problems with the sale and supply of paper, manages to continue in rotation with a low number of pages and four pages. It has about 600 workers who are direct employees of the newspaper, while another 300 work as collaborators. It has also owned

10540-503: The little understood world of the imagination. The ordinariness of magical realism's magic relies on its accepted and unquestioned position in tangible and material reality ." Fabulism traditionally refers to fables, parables, and myths, and is sometimes used in contemporary contexts for authors whose work falls within or relates to magical realism. Though often used to refer to works of magical realism, fabulism incorporates fantasy elements into reality, using myths and fables to critique

10664-641: The magazines ¡HOLA! Venezuela and Todo en domingo (the latter of which is delivered together with the Sunday edition of the newspaper), a book publishing press and has two websites: Eme de mujer and ovaciondeportes.com. In February 2022, the main Internet providers in Venezuela blocked access to the newspaper's website, days after the Supreme Tribunal of Justice ordered the newspaper headquarters to be handed over to Diosdado Cabello . The newspaper

10788-555: The magical realist style by implicitly referring to the latter's critical works, writing that "The existence of the marvelous real is what started magical realist literature, which some critics claim is the truly American literature." It can consequently be drawn that Carpentier's lo real maravilloso is especially distinct from 'magical realism' by the fact that the former applies specifically to América (the American content). On that note, Lee A. Daniel categorizes critics of Carpentier into three groups: those that do not consider him

10912-580: The mancheta, the use of notorious headlines with large graphics and the classification of the entire newspaper by thematic areas. During the first year it circulated with a circulation of 10,000 copies per day and each edition consisted of two eight-page spreads, in standard format and seven columns. The first headquarters of El Nacional was located between the corners of Marcos Parra and Pedrera, in downtown Caracas, from 1943 to 1951. It then moved its headquarters to Puerto Escondido from 1951 to 2007, for 56 years. In 1961, an advertising boycott in opposition to

11036-458: The most important intellectuals of the country, wrote for more than fifty years in an opinion column in the newspaper. Former editors include José Ramón Medina and Miguel Otero Silva . The newspaper is directed by Chief Editorial Officer Miguel Henrique Otero, grandson of the founder, and by chief executive officer Manuel Sucre . El Nacional would become quite critical of the second Carlos Andrés Pérez administration, joining opponents such as

11160-634: The most widely read and circulated daily national newspapers in the country. In 2010, it had an average of 83,000 papers distributed daily and 170,000 copies on weekends. It has been called Venezuela's newspaper of record . Since the increase of censorship in Venezuela during the presidencies of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro , El Nacional has been described as one of the last independent newspapers in Venezuela. El Nacional published its final print edition on 14 December 2018 (after having been cut to five print editions per week back in August), joining in

11284-578: The mundane through a hyper-realistic and often mysterious lens. The term magical realism , as opposed to magic realism , first emerged in the 1955 essay "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction" by critic Angel Flores in reference to writing that combines aspects of magic realism and marvelous realism. While Flores named Jorge Luis Borges as the first magical realist, he failed to acknowledge either Carpentier or Uslar Pietri for bringing Roh's magic realism to Latin America. Borges

11408-400: The mystery that breathes behind things", and supports the claim by saying a writer must heighten his senses to the point of estado limite ('limit state' or 'extreme') in order to realize all levels of reality, most importantly that of mystery. Magic realism contains an "implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite". Especially with regard to Latin America, the style breaks from

11532-531: The narrator as ordinary occurrences; the reader, therefore, accepts the marvelous as normal and common. To Clark Zlotchew, the differentiating factor between the fantastic and magical realism is that in fantastic literature, such as Kafka's The Metamorphosis , there is a hesitation experienced by the protagonist, implied author or reader in deciding whether to attribute natural or supernatural causes to an unsettling event, or between rational or irrational explanations. Fantastic literature has also been defined as

11656-404: The natural, familiar world. This twofold world of magical realism differs from the onefold world that can be found in fairy-tale and fantasy literature. By contrast, in the series " Sorcerous Stabber Orphen " the laws of natural world become a basis for a naturalistic concept of magic. Prominent English-language fantasy writers have rejected definitions of "magic realism" as something other than

11780-493: The other, philosophy, better suited to intellectuals. A singular reading of the first mode will render a distorted or reductive understanding of the text. The fictitious reader—such as Aureliano from 100 Years of Solitude —is the hostage used to express the writer's anxiety on this issue of who is reading the work and to what ends, and of how the writer is forever reliant upon the needs and desires of readers (the market). The magic realist writer with difficulty must reach

11904-533: The paper's leftist views (its then editor, Miguel Otero Silva, had been a member of the Communist Party of Venezuela ) nearly forced the paper into bankruptcy. The publication of the web site began in August 1995, being considered the first Venezuelan newspaper with a web site. The digital edition of El Nacional was inaugurated in 1996, characterized by including information different from that presented in

12028-488: The people around him with extraordinary honesty were noticed by him. In this sense, his works are a whole mountain of delightfully sketched caricatures of reality. But he was not limited to them. Often he created nightmares similar to Gogol's Portrait . Gogol is a student of Hoffmann and is extremely dependent on Hoffmann in many works, for example in Portrait and The Nose . In them, just like Hoffmann, he frightens with

12152-414: The playwright Nina Sadur . In Bengali literature , prominent writers of magic realism include Nabarun Bhattacharya , Akhteruzzaman Elias , Shahidul Zahir , Jibanananda Das and Syed Waliullah . In Kannada literature , the writers Shivaram Karanth and Devanur Mahadeva have infused magical realism in their most prominent works. In Japanese literature , one of the most important authors of this genre

12276-536: The printed format of the newspaper. It was also the first Venezuelan newspaper to incorporate the figure of the pressombudsmannen or reader's ombudsman in 1998. The publishing company C.A. El Nacional launched on the market a sensationalist-yellowish newspaper on 14 October 1996 with the intention to reach the popular strata, without obtaining good results. Due to its economic losses and after several changes, it printed its last issue on 8 April 2005. In 2007 it changed its headquarters, where it had been for 56 years, to

12400-440: The reader constructs a world using the raw materials of life. Understanding both realism and magical realism within the realm of a narrative mode is key to understanding both terms. Magical realism "relies upon the presentation of real, imagined or magical elements as if they were real. It relies upon realism, but only so that it can stretch what is acceptable as real to its limits." Literary theorist Kornelije Kvas wrote that "what

12524-404: The reader's world, it explores the impact fiction has on reality, reality on fiction, and the reader's role in between; as such, it is well suited for drawing attention to social or political criticism. Furthermore, it is the tool paramount in the execution of a related and major magic-realist phenomenon: textualization . This term defines two conditions—first, where a fictitious reader enters

12648-443: The real world provides the basis for magical realism. Writers do not invent new worlds, but rather, they reveal the magical in the existing world, as was done by Gabriel García Márquez , who wrote the seminal work One Hundred Years of Solitude . In the world of magical realism, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world. Authorial reticence is the "deliberate withholding of information and explanations about

12772-778: The reality of life". He believed magic realism was "a continuation of the vanguardia [or avant-garde ] modernist experimental writings of Latin America". The extent to which the characteristics below apply to a given magic realist text varies. Every text is different and employs a smattering of the qualities listed here. However, they accurately portray what one might expect from a magic realist text. Magical realism portrays fantastical events in an otherwise realistic tone. It brings fables, folk tales, and myths into contemporary social relevance. Fantasy traits given to characters, such as levitation , telepathy , and telekinesis , help to encompass modern political realities that can be phantasmagorical . The existence of fantastic elements in

12896-520: The socially-dominant may implement magical realism to disassociate themselves from their " power discourse ". Theo D'haen calls this change in perspective "decentering". In his review of Gabriel Garcia Márquez 's novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold , Salman Rushdie argues that the formal experiment of magic realism allows political ideas to be expressed in ways that might not be possible through more established literary forms: "El realismo mágico" , magic realism, at least as practised by Márquez,

13020-420: The streets today to show this knave who is in power that we Venezuelans are decent and dignified people". On the following day editorial, the newspaper reacted positively to the political crisis leading up to the coup saying that "this battle is coming to an end". On 14 April 2018, government-sponsored colectivos attacked the headquarters of El Nacional , kidnapping security workers and a janitor. Weeks after

13144-564: The supernatural into the natural framework in magical realism. This integration is made possible in magical realism as the author presents the supernatural as being equally valid to the natural. There is no hierarchy between the two codes. The ghost of Melquíades in Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude or the baby ghost in Toni Morrison 's Beloved who visit or haunt the inhabitants of their previous residence are both presented by

13268-402: The surface of what's really going on. In the works of Márquez, as in the world he describes, impossible things happen constantly, and quite plausibly, out in the open under the midday sun. Mexican critic Luis Leal summed up the difficulty of defining magical realism by writing, "If you can explain it, then it's not magical realism." He offers his own definition by writing, "Without thinking of

13392-421: The term lo real maravilloso (roughly 'the marvelous real') in the prologue to his novel The Kingdom of this World (1949); however, some debate whether he is truly a magical realist writer, or simply a precursor and source of inspiration. Maggie Bowers claims he is widely acknowledged as the originator of Latin American magical realism (as both a novelist and critic); she describes Carpentier's conception as

13516-478: The term "The New Fabulism". Şerban is famous for his reinventions in the art of staging and directing, known for directing works like "The Stag King" and "The Serpent Woman", both fables adapted into plays by Carl Gozzi . Gussow defined "The New Fabulism" as "taking ancient myths and turn(ing) them into morality tales", In Ed Menta's book, The Magic Behind the Curtain , he explores Şerban's work and influence within

13640-424: The terms "history", " mimetic ", "familiarization", "empiricism/logic", "narration", "closure-ridden/reductive naturalism", and " rationalization / cause and effect ". On the other hand, magic realism encompasses the terms "myth/legend", "fantastic/supplementation", " defamiliarization ", " mysticism /magic", " meta-narration ", "open-ended/expansive romanticism ", and "imagination/negative capability". Surrealism

13764-405: The terms magic realism and magical realism by examining the relationships with other genres such as realism, surrealism, fantastic literature, science fiction and its African version, the animist realism. Realism is an attempt to create a depiction of actual life; a novel does not simply rely on what it presents but how it presents it. In this way, a realist narrative acts as framework by which

13888-460: The two have, some argue, a lot in common. Magical realist works do not seek to primarily satisfy a popular audience, but instead, a sophisticated audience that must be attuned to noticing textual "subtleties". While the postmodern writer condemns escapist literature (like fantasy, crime, ghost fiction), he/she is inextricably related to it concerning readership. There are two modes in postmodern literature : one, commercially successful pop fiction, and

14012-628: The words of Bettelheim, "make physical what is otherwise ephemeral or ineffable in an attempt ... of understanding those things that we struggle the most to talk about: loss, love, transition." Author Amber Sparks described fabulism as blending fantastical elements into a realistic setting. Crucial to the genre, said Sparks, is that the elements are often borrowed from specific myths, fairy tales, and folktales. Unlike magical realism, it does not just use general magical elements, but directly incorporates details from well known stories. "Our lives are bizarre, meandering, and fantastic", said Hannah Gilham of

14136-435: The works of C. S. Lewis , whose biographer, A.N. Wilson, referred to him as the greatest fabulist of the 20th century. His 1956 novel Till We Have Faces has been referenced as a fabulist retelling. This re-imagining of the story of Cupid and Psyche uses an age-old myth to impart moralistic knowledge on the reader. A Washington Post review of a Lewis biography discusses how his work creates "a fiction" in order to deliver

14260-410: Was born that year. In 1973, Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup led by General Augusto Pinochet . Isabel found herself arranging safe passage for people on the "wanted lists", which she continued to do until her mother and stepfather narrowly escaped assassination. When she herself was added to the list and began receiving death threats, she fled to Venezuela , where she stayed for 13 years. It

14384-405: Was during this time that Allende wrote her debut novel The House of the Spirits (1982). Allende has stated that her move from Chile made her a serious writer: "I don't think I would be a writer if I had stayed in Chile. I would be trapped in the chores, in the family, in the person that people expected me to be." Allende believed that, being female in a patriarchal family, she was not expected to be

14508-604: Was forced to flee the country due to the coup. During her time in Venezuela , Allende was a freelance journalist for El Nacional in Caracas from 1976 to 1983 and an administrator of the Marrocco School in Caracas from 1979 to 1983. In 1981, while in Caracas, Allende received a phone call informing her that her 99-year-old grandfather was near death, and she sat down to write him a letter, hoping to thereby "keep him alive, at least in spirit." The letter evolved into

14632-749: Was granted United States citizenship in 1993, having lived in California since 1989. Allende was born in Lima , Peru , the daughter of Francisca Llona Barros called "Doña Panchita" (the daughter of Agustín Llona Cuevas and Isabel Barros Moreira, of Portuguese descent) and Tomás Allende, who was at the time a second secretary at the Chilean embassy. Her father Tomás was a first cousin of Salvador Allende , President of Chile from 1970 to 1973. In 1945, after Tomás left them, Isabel's mother relocated with her three children to Santiago , Chile, where they lived until 1953. In 1953 Allende's mother married Ramón Huidobro and

14756-591: Was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters , and in 2010, she received Chile's National Literature Prize . President Barack Obama awarded her the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom . Allende's novels are often based upon her personal experience and historical events and pay homage to the lives of women, while weaving together elements of myth and realism. She has lectured and toured U.S. colleges to teach literature. Fluent in English, Allende

14880-505: Was influenced by a German and Italian painting style of the 1920s which were given the same name. In The Art of Fiction , British novelist and critic David Lodge defines magic realism: "when marvellous and impossible events occur in what otherwise purports to be a realistic narrative—is an effect especially associated with contemporary Latin American fiction (for example the work of the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez ) but it

15004-402: Was related to, but distinct from, surrealism , due to magic realism's focus on material object and the actual existence of things in the world, as opposed to surrealism's more abstract, psychological, and subconscious reality. 19th-century Romantic writers such as E. T. A. Hoffmann and Nikolai Gogol , especially in their fairy tales and short stories, have been credited with originating

15128-492: Was surprised. In previous attempts to write One Hundred Years of Solitude , I tried to tell the story without believing in it. I discovered that what I had to was believe in them myself and them write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face." The theoretical implications of visual art's magic realism greatly influenced European and Latin American literature. Italian Massimo Bontempelli , for instance, claimed that literature could be

15252-439: Was the second richest country in the world. It was a generous, open country. So I feel a lot of pain with what is happening. I have many friends there, my son married a Venezuelan, my grandchildren were born in Venezuela, my brother lives in Venezuela with his whole family. My best friends are from Venezuela. Es decir la literatura de Allende es mala, pero está viva, es anémica, como muchos latinoamericanos, pero está viva. No va

15376-510: Was widely criticized by journalistic unions and opposition representatives as an attack on freedom of expression. In turn, El Nacional would go on to report the news with the word "censorship" in the spaces where news about crimes were usually published. After this first attempt to launch a popular newspaper called El Propio, which had its first edition in 2012 as a newspaper for the CDE segment, its last publication took place in September 2015 due to

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