Non-Latin American Magic Realism

There have been a few posts about magical realism, which I think is a very interesting literary movement, but not much has been said about magical realism outside of Latin America. The term "magic realism" was actually coined by a German art critic Franz Roh to refer to specific European art movements, and the "magical real" was a term used by Alejo Carpentier, a Cuban writer, in reference to Latin American literature in 1949. There is a lot of critical discussion of magical realism as a movement, and many different writers and works can be included in the style of writing depending on what definition of magical realism you use. Some non-Latin American writers who have works that are often regarded as using magical realism include Salman Rushdie, an British Indian novelist whose book Midnight's Children we read later in the year, and several Japanese authors including Yasunari Kawabata and Haruki Murakami (whose Norwegian Wood I would highly recommend though it's not very magical realist). A while ago I read Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which definitely had elements of magical realism, with characters living in modern England being possessed by angels and demons.

It is not very surprising that magical realism is such a large movement as it's fundamentally a broadly defined narrative mode that can be used in many different ways. Interestingly, many magical realist works do have similar characteristics, such as postcolonial literature, which applies Latin American magical realism, but also, for example, to works by Rushdie and Nigerian author Ben Okri (We read a short story by him last year). In this context, the "magical" nature of the native mythology is often contrasted with the "realist" viewpoint imposed by the colonizers. If you enjoyed 100 Years of Solitude, there are many other great works of magical realist literature to be found both from Latin America and elsewhere.