There is something very special about culture in Latin America. We just loveeee mysticism! It is literally everywhere: the stories and legends we are told, the books we write, the movies we make and everything in between. So much so that we even created a category of literature called magical realism.
Magical realism includes books such as A hundred years of Solitude and The House of Spirits, among many others. What makes this style so unique is the use of magical or mystical elements in real world stories, something that was not done before.
Take The House of Spirits for instance: this is a thrilling story about a family in Chile before the First World War, it spans generations, a century of violent changes, passion, drama and…you guessed it, magic!
The groundbreaking thing about magical realism is that it’s not even considered a big part of the story, it’s not Harry Potter where magic is the story. In magical realism, the stories are very much based on reality and the characters just take these “supernatural” events as normal. This is rooted in how our culture sees the world and it’s thrilling to read.
In House of Spirits, for example, we have a character who is clairvoyant and gets visions, so she follows them and once she does what she has to, there’s no second thought or questions about how this came to be, it’s just done, and the story keeps moving.
These novels move fast, and they don’t tend to follow normal literature pace or rules, so you will definitely be entertained. I promise you won’t be able to put it down and you will learn a lot in the process.
