MAGICAL REALISM AVATARS IN THE ROMANIAN NOVEL
MAGICAL REALISM AVATARS IN THE ROMANIAN NOVEL

Summary/Abstract: To inscribe Romanian magical realist fiction onto the map of what has turned, from a regional Latin-American literary code, into a world literature (sub)genre, we trace the connection of autochthonous novels of the interwar period (marked by the affinities of myth-informed fiction with European literary movements) with the ones of the 1970s and 1980s (featuring direct influences of magical realism from Latin America) and with novels of the 1990s and the years 2000, when the genre came into full bloom globally. Given the novel’s remarkably porous fabric, we begin by discussing the uptake and processing of mythical and archaic motifs by Mihail Sadoveanu. To illustrate the fully established genre flourishing in the mid-communist cultural and political context due to ample vernacular translations from the Latin-American boom, we focus on fiction by Sorin Titel, Ștefan Bănulescu, George Bălăiță and Ștefan Agopian, whose writings adapted major magical realist themes in subversively narrative stylistic formats. Four novels by Mircea Cărtărescu, Bogdan Popescu, Doina Ruști and Radu Pavel Gheo are invoked to argue in favour of the post-communist synchronization of Romanian magical realism with postcolonial fiction’s postmodernist aesthetics and socio-political accents. Through the importance attached to the topic of memory, to re-writing the past and the problematic positing of recent history seeping into personal histories, the Romanian novels discussed become inscribable in the world literary horizon of magical realism, illuminating its generic repertoire.

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