Magical realism has brought the Latin American novel onto the world map of literature, and the magical realists have thus opened up a new dimension in the literary representation of reality. Miguel Angel Asturias got his inspiration got his inspiration from the myths of the Mayan Indians. Alejo Carpentier confronted sophisticated European rationalism with voodoo as a cultural reality. Juan Rulfo wrote himself into the purgatory that hangs over the Mexican peasant culture. Gabriel Garcia Marquez made the cliff a natural part of reality. And Isabel Allende evoked her childhood spirits in her image of Chile's recent history. Starting from an outline of the history of the Latin American novel and a reflection on the relationship between myth and history, this book presents five in-depth readings of these five magical narrators.
