Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America

Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America rethinks the rise and fall of magical realism in Latin America in the light of the cultural history of the emotions, and in conversation with contemporary theories of the affects. It explores how twentieth-century magical realist narrative reimagines public and collective forms of feeling, in particular the colonial history of wonder in the wake of the voyages to the New World. Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America argues that this reconceptualization of magical realism also invites a new reading of its marked devaluation in contemporary Latin American literature, suggesting that this turning point responds to major changes in the uses and circulation of forms of emotional intensity in the present.