I went to a good U3A literature session recently but probably even better was the chat on my journey home. The driver talked about the books of Elif Shafak with great interest and he used the term magical realism. It took me a moment to realise that he hadn’t made this up but that it was a real literary term. The book ‘The Island of Missing Trees’ (by Elif Shafak) is a case in point. This is a great book, that I have read and will read again. It is not sci fi or fantasy and it is not about the supernatural but instead strange, magical things happen, particularly the manipulation of time, within a normal, straightforward, sometimes mundane narrative. The other book that immediately comes to mind is ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell. This is definitely my favourite of her stories and I love the numinous moments that occur. ‘100 years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, ‘Midnight’s Children’ by Salman Rushdie, ‘The Life of Pi’ written by Yann Martel and ‘The House of Spirits’ by Isabel Allende are all more examples of magical realism.
Great to learn something new.