The Stories of Eva Luna

Isabel Allende, along with other Latin American authors like Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges, is known for her work in the genre of magical realism. Magical realism is most closely associated with Latin American authors, although it can apply to global authors as well. Internationally, authors like Haruki Murakami and Salman Rushdie are also considered authors of magical realism.

As a genre, magical realism is characterized by fantastic or magical events or features in an otherwise realistic setting. These magical elements blur the line between fantasy and reality in such works, and the characters react to them as if they are ordinary. Usually, the non-realistic elements are limited so that most of the story and setting feel realistic, which distinguishes it from the fantasy genre. Fantasy is characterized by its departure from reality, while magical realism includes occasional magical elements to highlight or emphasize something about reality. Famous examples include Borges’s sprawling labyrinths, the angel that falls from the sky in Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” and Clara’s clairvoyance and telekinesis in Allende’s The House of the Spirits.

In The Stories of Eva Luna, the setting is a realistic though fictional Latin American country during the second half of the 20th century. The characters contend with realistic problems like poverty, death, trauma, and war and experience realistic desires. Magical elements are infused into the otherwise realistic context, including instances of miraculous healing, curses, and people vanishing into thin air or becoming invisible. These deepen the volume’s themes—for example, sudden disappearances reflect the reality of living under military dictatorships like Augustus Pinochet’s regime in Chile, which Isabel Allende fled.