Originally published by Michelle Witte on April 4, 2016.
Image above created by Stefano Vitale for Broadway musical production of Like Water for Chocolate.
This is the fifth in a five-part series on Magical Realism. If you haven’t read the previous posts, I recommend starting with Part 1: What Is Magical Realism?
“When you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible.”
–Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
MAGICAL REALISM IN BOOKS AND FILM
There are myriad books and movies that can qualify as magical realism. (Plus some titles that are not quite magic realism but close, as explained in Part 2: What Magical Realism Isn’t. I’ll try to label those when I come across them.)
This list is most definitely a work in progress and not comprehensive. There’s no way I can find every example of magical realism in film and literature without help, so please chime in in the comments with other magic realism titles you are aware of. (NOTE: This list was originally created in 2016 so it is very out of date. Feel free to suggest additional—especially more current—titles in the comments.)
BOOKS
These are books written for adult readers. Children’s books are grouped in a separate category, below.
Sherman Alexie
- The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Sarah Addison Allen
- Garden Spells
- The Girl Who Chased the Moon
- Peach Keeper
Isabelle Allende
- The House of Spirits*
- Eva Luna
“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.”
–Isabel Allende, Eva Luna
Christina Lopez Barrio
- The House of Impossible Loves
Brunonia Barry
- The Lace Reader
Aimee Bender
- The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Jorge Luis Borges
- Ficciones
Italo Calvino
- Invisible Cities
- If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler
Angela Carter
- Nights at the Circus
- Wise Children
Michael Chabon
- The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
Paulo Coelho
- The Alchemist
- I Sat Down by the River Piedra and Wept
Junot Diaz
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- The Mistress Of Spices*
Laura Esquivel
- Like Water for Chocolate*
F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button*
Jonathan Safran Foer
- Everything Is Illuminated
Neil Gaiman
- The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Günter Grass
- The Tin Drum
Joanne Harris
- Blackberry Wine
- Chocolate*
Mark Helprin
- Winter’s Tale
Alice Hoffman
- Practical Magic*
- Green Angel
Zora Neale Hurston
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
Kimberly Karalius
- Love, Fortunes, and Other Disasters
Sue Monk Kidd
- The Secret Life of Bees*
Stephen King
- The Green Mile*
Gabriel García Márquez
- Love in the Time of Cholera
- One-Hundred Years of Solitude
Yann Martel
- The Life of Pi*
David Mitchell
- Cloud Atlas*
Erin Morgenstern
- The Night Circus
Toni Morrison
- Song of Solomon
- Beloved
Haruki Murakami
- 1Q8
- Kafka on the Shore
Gloria Naylor
- Mama Day
Audrey Niffenegger
- The Time-Traveler’s Wife*
Téa Obreht
- The Tiger’s Wife
Ann Patchett
- The Magician’s Assistant
Thomas Pynchon
- Gravity’s Rainbow
Salman Rushdie
- The Satanic Verses
- Midnight’s Children
“What’s real and what’s true aren’t necessarily the same.”
–Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
Patrick Süskind
- Perfum*
Daniel Wallace
- Big Fish*
Carlos Ruiz Zafrón
- The Shadow of the Wind
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
This includes authors of middle grade and young adult fiction, which fall under the umbrella of children’s literature.
Kathi Appelt
Francesca Lia Block
- Weetzie Bat
Sharon Creech
Roald Dahl
- Matilda*
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory*
Kate DiCamillo
- Tiger Rising
Lindsay Eager
- Hour of the Bees
A.S. King
Guadalupe Garcia McCall
- Summer of the Mariposas
Hannah Moskowitz
- Teeth
E. Nesbit
- Five Children and It*
Louis Sachar
- Holes*
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- The Little Prince*
Rebecca Stead
- When You Reach Me
*These books have also been made into movies and/or tv shows that are magical realism. But note that not all adaptations are.
FILM
Amélie
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Big Fish+
Chocolat+
Field of Dreams
Five Children and It+
Holes+
The House of Spirits+
Kill Bill
Like Water for Chocolate+
Midnight in Paris
The Mistress of Spices+
Mulholland Drive
The Natural+
O Brother, Where Art Thou?+ (If you weren’t aware, the film is based upon Homer’s The Odyssey. Mind = blown.)
Pan’s Labyrinth
Practical Magic+
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World+ (graphic novel)
The Secret Life of Bees+
The Time Traveler’s Wife+
What Dreams May Come
Animated films by Hayao Miyazaki
TELEVISION
Due South
Haven+ (The Stephen King short story this TV series is based upon, The Colorado Kid, doesn’t have any fantastical elements.)
Lost (Lost is somewhat of a mixed bag, as it includes elements of sci-fi, surrealism, supernatural, and a host of other subgenres and tropes, but running through it all is a sense that there is something more, in this case sinister, to the world in which the characters live, and it is always creeping at the edges of life on the island.)
Northern Exposure
Pushing Daisies
Twin Peaks
+Adapted from a book.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Magic Realism Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism
TV Tropes http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicRealism
What Is Magical Realism, Really? essay by Bruce Holland Rogers http://www.writing-world.com/sf/realism.shtml
Alberto Rios supplemental material to accompany his course on Magical Realism http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/magicalrealism
Magical Realism Links: http://faculty.scf.edu/jonesj/lit2090/magicalrealismlinks.htm
Additional links: http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/magicalrealism/index_files/Page390.htm
Part 1: What Is Magical Realism?
Part 2: What Magical Realism ISN’T
Part 3: Elements of Magical Realism
Part 4: What Magical Realism Is To Me
Part 5: Magical Realism In Books and Film
Add to this list:
If you know of other books or movies with elements of magical realism, please mention them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list (with the caveat that I’ll vet those that aren’t accurately labeled MR, since so many are miscategorized, hence the reason for this series). To keep this list somewhat manageable, I’ll be limiting it to traditionally published titles (i.e., books that have been published by a traditional press). If you’re an author whose published works include magical realism titles, feel free to mention your books in the comments, keeping in mind that I’ll delete comments that become too self-promoting.
Also, feel free to correct me if I get any of these wrong. Sadly, I have not had a chance to read/watch everything on this list, so I’ve had to trust lists and recommendations from other people, which aren’t always accurate. #lifegoals
Also also, please do not pitch your book or manuscript to me here. If you want to query me with your magical realism title (after reading this entire series of posts to determine whether your book actually is magic realism, of course), you can find my submission guidelines here. But note that I only represent books for kids and teens.
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