American Magic Realism

Posted on January 24, 2003 in Writing

An author which a member of my writing group read aloud as part of a critique of a piece I am working on, suggested that magic realism came primarily out of societies which had experienced terrific social upheaval. As an American, the author suggested, I might have a hard time coming up with stuff.

After watching Spiderman on DVD tonight, I beg to differ. We have a magic realism genre: it exists in comic books. More serious authors have not, for the most the part, made the step of including the mythology of the super hero in their work.

It gets me to thinking.