Thesis (M.A.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Arts - Department of English

This thesis deals with magic realism, a term that first appeared in the field of painting in Germany in 1925. It became established as a literary term in the 1940s when it was discussed by the Cuban critic and writer Alejo Carpentier. Roughly speaking, it means the combination of realistic and extraordinary events which can be believable in specific circumstances. This comparative study aims at tracing this element in three novels, namely, the South African Zakes Mda{u2019}s Ways of Dying (1995), the Cuban Alejo Carpentier{u2019}s The Kingdom of this World (1949) and the Egyptian Khairy Shalaby{u2019}s The Lodging House (1993). The aim of the thesis is to prove that magic realism mostly appears in countries going through political instability and in which poverty prevails. So, the thesis attempts to show how magic realism is a logical outcome of political and social instabilities, as in the case of South Africa in the Post-Apartheid period; Haiti in the aftermath of the black slaves{u2019} rebellion and Egypt after the revolution of 1952. The Marxist critical approach as presented by Pierre Macherey will be resorted to whenever it is needed.

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