New Trends in Magic Realism

Ever since the publication of the first magic realist novels and stories, the genre has flourished, finding its way into the literatures of the world and raising a considerable amount of critical attention. Although its origins have usually been associated with Latin American literary and cultural traditions, it has become a worldwide phenomenon, using innovative techniques and an equally surprising and persuasive symbolism or imagery in its development of new aesthetic strategies. Due to its hybrid nature, magic realist fiction has always been regarded as subversive and especially suitable for the exploration and transgression of boundaries - be they cultural, geographical, historical, epistemological or political. Recently, various new trends have exerted a significant impact on magic realist literature and film-e.g. the New Weird, Slipstream, Mash-ups and crossovers with other fantastic genres and horror fiction. The papers in this special issue explore such new influences anddiscuss the ways in which recent socio-cultural, but also aesthetic developments have instigated innovative trends in magic realism. The contributors to this volume include Sebastian Domsch ("Keep Genre Weird: Magic Realism, Slipstream and the New Weird"), Giorgio Busi-Rizzi ("It All Depends On What You Mean By Reality: US Plain Magical Realism"), Dana Del George ("Bewildering Nostalgia: Magical Realism in Recent American Short Fiction"), James Whitlark ("Collapsing Borders in Magic Realism: Luis Urrea"), Justyna Gil ("Magical Elements in Ali Shaw's The Girl with the Glass Feet") and Don Tresca ("'A Uniquely Portable Magic': Magic Realism in the Late Works of Stephen King").