Magical Realism Revisited: The Intimate Relationship between Reality and Fantasy in African Literature in English

Abstract

Magical realism as an artistic genre has been specified principally as a literary genre in its development. It is generally thought to have originated in South American folklore and literary writing, but this is a creative style that is quintessentially African. Defying a neat definition, magical realism is understood in this article as about human beings interacting with their environment. Characterised by elements of the fantastic woven into a narrative with a sense of presentation, magical realism is controversial. The controversy ranges from political undertones where critics have thought the term a postcolonial label employed by colonisers to marginalise the fiction of the colonised to express alterity. In African oral literature, magical realism is a genre that has serves to reveal the intimate relationship between reality and fantasy. The focus in this article is therefore on the use of magical realism as a device in selected African literary works in English to show that this device is not only employed by third world writers to cover up their lack of artistic merit, but also to instill cultural values and norms. The intention is also to indicate the often subordinated grandeur of African oral and literary classics.