I first learned about magical realism after completing the first draft of my debut novel. To my surprise, I discovered it has nothing to do with the kind of magic used in the Harry Potter series. Such magical characters, living in a world outside of our real world, relate to the fantasy genre. Rather, magical realism is an acceptable element of literary fiction used by award-winning authors like Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967); Isabel Allende (The House of Spirits, 1982), and Toni Morrison (Beloved, 1987). The more recent experimental novel, Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, winner of the 2017 Booker Prize, also falls into this category of literary fiction.

These award-winning novels are all grounded in the real world. The magic refers to an extraordinary element in the story—from folklore, mythology, or the supernatural (such as ghosts or spirts)—described as a matter-of-fact occurrence. No explanation given. Some literary scholars have suggested that magical realism is a natural outcome of post-colonial writers seeking to make sense of two realities: the conquerors and the conquered. I don’t quite see it this way.