Magical Realism: Kafka on the Shore, The Island of Missing Trees

Magical realism blends realistic settings with fantastical elements, with top examples including classics like Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, and Toni Morrison's Beloved, alongside contemporary hits such as Matt Haig's The Midnight Library and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, often featuring blurred lines between the mundane and the miraculous.

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak is widely considered historical fiction, blending real events of the Cyprus conflict (1974) with magical realism, following a forbidden love story between a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, and exploring themes of identity, home, and trauma across time (1970s Cyprus to 2010s London).

• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami:
Features talking cats, surreal dreamscapes, and magical occurrences in a modern setting.
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman: A dark fairytale about childhood memories and magical beings from another world.
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E.
Schwab: A woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever but is cursed to be forgotten.

Good Omens by Gaiman is also considered to incorporate elements of magical realism, though it's also firmly in the urban fantasy genre, blending the supernatural (angels, demons, prophecies) seamlessly into mundane, contemporary English settings, making the fantastic feel real and relatable, which is a hallmark of magical realism. Authors like Neil Gaiman often use this style, treating magical elements like falling fish or a demon's Bentley as normal occurrences in our world, not a separate fantasy realm.

*The City and Its Uncertain Walls ~ new by Murakami

Additional reading ideas offered for our members who are interested:)