Salman Rushdie on Magical Realism: True Stories Don't Tell the Whole Truth
The acclaimed author delved deeply into Magic Realism for his latest book. Here, he describes why this genre continues to thrive. Rushdie's latest novel is "Two ...
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Stories don’t have to be true, you know. That by including elements of the fantastic or elements of fable or mythological elements or fairytale or just pure make believe you can actually start getting at the truth in a different way. It’s another door into the truth. And that’s why I think the thing that is interesting about the phrase magic realism is if when it’s used people tend only to hear the word magic. So they think it’s just about fantasy. But the word realism is as important and what this kind of writing tries to do is to be grounded in the real, to be grounded in an actual quite strong vision of the real and then use techniques to express that vision which don’t necessarily have to be realistic. The thing about Magical Realm as it’s so called is that it’s a ne...
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Stories don’t have to be true, you know. That by including elements of the fantastic or elements of fable or mythological elements or fairytale or just pure make believe you can actually start getting at the truth in a different way. It’s another door into the truth. And that’s why I think the thing that is interesting about the phrase magic realism is if when it’s used people tend only to hear the word magic. So they think it’s just about fantasy. But the word realism is as important and what this kind of writing tries to do is to be grounded in the real, to be grounded in an actual quite strong vision of the real and then use techniques to express that vision which don’t necessarily have to be realistic. The thing about Magical Realm as it’s so called is that it’s a ne...
