The genre of magical realism has, for several reasons, often been related to post-colonial writing mainly because of the genre’s origins in Latin American culture and its widespread presence in its literary tradition. It was, in fact, not until the 1980s that magical realism began to spread beyond South American borders towards other countries (see Norridge 72), and, even then, it proved most popular in those countries that had been through processes of colonization, such as India or the Middle East. Thus, magical realism “seemed, in a literary context, to be most obviously operative in cultures situated at the fringes of mainstream literary traditions” (Slemon 10), which closely links it to the expression of marginal cultures and identities. Something rather similar happens with the short story form, which has long been considered an ideal mode of expression for the liminal and the marginal (see Achilles and Bergmann).
The present article aims to explore a magical realist short stor...