Magic realism in diaspora literature vis-s vis Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh and Rashida Murphy’s The Historian’s Daughter.

Abstract

The term magical realism was first used by Frantz Roh in the 1930s to refer to painting which had strayed from the strict guidelines of realism. However, later it came to be used as a mode of narration in the fiction of Latin American writers in the 1970s. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian writer popularized the magical realist mode in fiction with One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Times of Cholera and many more. It has now become a common narrative technique by many writers such as Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian writer, African American writer Toni Morrison, and Indian English writer  Salman Rushdie to name a few. It is a technique of narration which blends reality with the fantastic: both the ordinary and extraordinary are presented in a matter-of-fact manner. There is also social criticism that runs through the narratives. We find the genre effectively used by writers of the diaspora as they negotiate their experiences of the past and the present in the igrcondition.  Gabriel Marquez suggests that cultures and countries differ in what they call real. It is here that magical realism serves its function as it facilitates the inclusion of alternative belief systems. Rushdie has stated in his essay that diaspora writers create imaginary homelands with whatever they can glean from facts about their country. The broken mirror images of diaspora literature result in creating a phantasmagoria of people and events spanning generations and continents that create multiple reflections in the narration, breaking the barriers of time and distance: a broken-mirror effect . Rushdie is an Indian born, UK educated and settled NRI, who has affiliations with the native land as well as England that has given him a home and a name as a writer. The Moors Last Sigh, is a well- known novel that was published immediately after ten long years of his political asylum following the fatwa on his life. Rashida Murphy is an Indian born Gujarati settled in Perth , Australia. Her first novel The Historians Daughter has already won her awards and literary acclaim. She is a new writer who shares a remarkable resemblance to Rushdies style of narration using the magic realism mode. This narrative technique of magical realism is at its best in the hand of these diaspora writers whose novels deal with stories of hybrid characters, in different continents and time zones.  Both novels are family sagas located in specific historical periods in India as well as the world. This research paper seeks to highlight how magic realism enhances the narrative and the ambience of the novels to produce literary masterpieces of diaspora writings