Fantasy with Friends: Magical Realism

Monday means Fantasy with Friends time! All the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is about whether fantasy is about magical realism: Do you see magical realism as related to fantasy? Do you enjoy reading it? Why or why not? I think this question means to ask about “magical realism” as in the off-brand, non-Latin American stuff that gets used to spice up literary and contemporary fiction sometimes. As far as the “original”(?) stuff goes, I don’t know a lot about the Latin American literary tradition of magical realism, and though I’ve read (and largely enjoyed) my Gabriel García Márquez, I haven’t read a lot of magical realism that actually stems from that tradition. As such, discussing that aspect would feel pretty out of my lane as a white Welsh person living in the UK and not well-versed in the tradition, even with two literature degrees. It’s my understanding that magical realism as a tradition is considered to be separate from…