Moments of magical realism in U.S. ethnic literatures

A collection of essays that explores magical realism as a momentary interruption of realism in US ethnic literature, showing how these moments of magic realism serve to memorialize, address, and redress traumatic ethnic histories. "This is the first anthology of its kind in two ways: first, it points to a subtle shift away from privileging magical realism as a monolithic category in the literatures of the Americas and second, it focuses this critical approach highlighting the work of writers from all the major minority groups of color - US Latino/a, African American, Native American, and Asian American, Jewish American, or Iranian American ancestry - who deploy magical realist moments to refer to traumatic or suppressed histories. Groundbreaking essays by both established experts and rising scholars offer a myriad of methodologies, including literary, psychoanalytic, and trauma theories; historiography, myth, and mnemonic analyses; religious, anthropological, and Marxist approaches. Magical realist moments conceal and reveal traumatic pasts, suppressed histories, half-known memories, lies, truths, new affinities, and even signposts to the future."--Publisher's website Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 Trauma, Magic, and Genealogy....Pages 19-38 Jewish Post-Holocaust Fiction and the Magical Realist Turn....Pages 39-63 Flying to Save Her Life....Pages 65-88 Front Matter....Pages 89-89 Flashes of Transgression....Pages 91-108 Searching for Rhythm and Freedom....Pages 109-121 Of Magical Gourds and Secret Senses....Pages 123-152 Front Matter....Pages 153-153 We, the Shamans, Eat Tobacco and Sing....Pages 155-174 Mythic Realism, Dreams, and Prophecy in James Welch’s The Heartsong of Charging Elk....Pages 175-191 Blood Re(a)d....Pages 193-210 Front Matter....Pages 211-211 Lifting “the Weight of the Continent”....Pages 213-240 Mama Day....Pages 241-258 Latinos and Magic Realism....Pages 259-268 Back Matter....Pages 269-279