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BRAHIM BARHOUN
UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID.
The Margins Claim the Center
Issues in Magical Realism
It may not be too much to say that magical realism constitutes the most important trend in international contemporary
fiction. Its worldwide distribution, particularly among novelists like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri, Tahar
Ben Jelloun and Toni Morrison, who have made the world at large their homeland, testifies to the fact that what is at stake is a
conscious effort to enter into the discourse of the west, to mix with it and to make it acknowledge marginalized or disadvantaged
cultures.
This cultural work with which magical realism as a genre has engaged, relies basically on the introduction of an “irreducible
element” that is unexplained according to the laws of modern, post-enlightenment empiricism with its heavy dependence on
sensory data, reason, and realism. The “irreducible element” is the magical in magical realism which rewards the reader with
forgotten histories, mythical ideologies and mysterious realities; in brief, “with a perspective on the world that still includes much
that has been lost.”
However, exactly because magical realism often gives voice to a fabulous and fantastic reality of an indigenous culture that
collides with the “logic” of the European intellectual tradition and because this is done in the language of the colonizer, magical
realism has been subject to critiques of reification of local traditions in the interest of the continuing superiority of a Eurocentric
subject, or, as some critics prefer to name it, of “primitivism as aesthetic colonization.” In other words, magical realism’s thematic
evocation of ancient myths, legends and indigenous practices has drawn criticism for its being a literature without loyalties, a
mere commodity.
My paper will then address the very basic question of the role such aspects as myth, the exotic and the supernatural play in the
magical realist genre, and how these interact with notions of history and identity.
Since magical realism is repeatedly cited as a literature emanating from formerly colonized regions, I will try to shed some light
on what such a kind of writing can offer in the postcolonial context.
For illustration, reference will be made to some canonical texts within the genre of magical realism.
MIÉRCOLES 29 DE OCTUBRE, 13.00.
SALÓN DE GRADOS. FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA (A)
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2004 - present: Ph D candidate at the Departamento de Filología Inglesa II (Literatura de los Paises de Lengua Inglesa)
1998 - 2003: Diploma de Estudios Avanzados in English Literature, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain)
1993 - 1997: B.A. in English Language and Literature, University of Abdelmalerk Essadi (Tetouan, Morooco)
Brahim Barhoun conducts research in the fields of colonial and postcolonial discourse, English language teaching, and current
affairs, with an emphasis upon magical realism, the teaching of EFL in Morocco, and peace and conflict resolution studies,
respectively.