In The Tracks of An Oxymoron: Magical Realism
Kitaplar > Mesleki Kitap · 2021
Yazarlar: Nesrin YAVAŞ
Mesleki Kitap, 2021, Ege University, B, Türkiye, İzmir, Uluslararası
Özet
<p>This book probably has its distant roots in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One</p><p>Hundred Years of Solitude, which I read as an undergraduate student. Years</p><p>later, Marquez's work sent me on this scholarly chase to see into the</p><p>manifestations of this international literary narrative mode in variety of literary</p><p>works written across geographical and cultural boundaries. Despite magical</p><p>realism's theoretical pitfalls, and the arguments that have defined it as</p><p>marketable literature, I have understood magical realism as a useful and</p><p>efficient narrative technique that can be utilized to achieve various ends in</p><p>literary texts. This volume has been suspicious of any totalizing, reductionist</p><p>tendencies to define magical realism as inherently postmodern, postcolonial or</p><p>marginal. Concomitantly, it has never lost sight of the active, dynamic nature of</p><p>the magical realist mode, which cannot be contained in clear-cut</p><p>conceptualizations and formulations. This volume admits magical realism's</p><p>widespread use in cross-cultural, postcolonial contexts due to its politically and</p><p>historically grounded stance toward hegemonic political and cultural structures.</p><p>While the scope of this volume necessitates that I give more attention to</p><p>the North American applications of magical realism, my larger mission is to</p><p>increase scholarship in comparative studies. I hope that this study will be a</p><p>scholarly guide to anyone interested in magical realist literature and encourage</p><p>comparative studies between world literatures. Given that we have prominent</p><p>magical realist authors like Latife Tekin and Nazlı Eray in contemporary</p><p>Turkish literature, comparative studies between Turkish magical realist works</p><p>and those produced in other geographical and cultural contexts would openup</p><p>new spaces where new meanings and new cultural/political works of magical</p><p>realism could be explored.</p>