Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-cjp7w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-28T01:08:37.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 4 - Pilgrim

Journeys to the Roots of Magical Realism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2022

Roanne Kantor
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Get access

Summary

This chapter considers the “globalization” of magical realism in the 1980s and its relationship to the consolidation of postcolonial literary studies in the same moment. Even as Latin America was being progressively marginalized in favor of taxonomic accounts of magical realism as a signature postcolonial style, Salman Rushdie and other South Asian authors became “pilgrims.” They use textual journeys to Latin America to declare the centrality of that tradition to their own forays into literary magic. Through references to Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez, and others, Rushdie and Zulfikar Ghose pose Latin America as a funhouse mirror that reflects back a hyperbolically distorted but ultimately referential image of postcolonial political life. Ghose is joined by Anita Desai in his approach to Latin America as a concave mirror, one that allows inverting the implied political meaning of institutional affiliation in “America” by redirecting their attachment southward. Finally, Sunny Singh interrogates the postcolonial critical desire for magical realism to act as a transparent window onto traditions of home, framing it instead as a looking glass – both opposite and identical.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Pilgrim
  • Roanne Kantor, Stanford University, California
  • Book: South Asian Writers, Latin American Literature, and the Rise of Global English
  • Online publication: 17 February 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009039727.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Pilgrim
  • Roanne Kantor, Stanford University, California
  • Book: South Asian Writers, Latin American Literature, and the Rise of Global English
  • Online publication: 17 February 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009039727.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Pilgrim
  • Roanne Kantor, Stanford University, California
  • Book: South Asian Writers, Latin American Literature, and the Rise of Global English
  • Online publication: 17 February 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009039727.005
Available formats
×