Popular European Magical Realism Books

Find magical realism books written by authors from Europe for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (81)

21.

Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar EN

Rating: 4 (6 votes)
Country: Europe / Belgium flag Belgium
Description:
Julio Cortazar's crazed masterpiece, the forbearer of the Latin Boom in the 1960s - published in Vintage Classics for the first time 'Cortazar's masterpiece. This is the first great novel of Spanish America... A powerful anti-novel but, like deeply understood moments in life itself, rich with many kinds of potential meanings and intimations' Times Literary Supplement Dazed by the disappearance of his muse, Argentinian writer Horatio Oliveira wanders the bridges of Paris, the sounds of jazz and the talk of literature, life and art echoing around him. But a chance encounter with a literary idol ... continue

22.

I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness by Irene Solà EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Spain flag Spain
Description:
Dawn is breaking over the Guilleries, a rugged mountain range in Catalonia frequented by wolf hunters, brigands, deserters, race-car drivers, ghosts, and demons. In a remote farmhouse called Mas Clavell, an impossibly old woman lies on her deathbed. Family and caretakers drift in and out. Meanwhile, all the women who have lived and died in that house are waiting for her to join them. They are preparing to throw her a party. As day turns to night, four hundred years’ worth of stories unspool, and the house reverberates with raucous laughter, pungent feasts, and piercing cries of pleasu... continue

23.
Invisible Cities

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Italy flag Italy
Description:
In Kublai Khan's garden, at sunset, the young Marco Polo diverts the aged emperor from his obsession with the impending end of his empire with tales of countless cities past, present, and future.

24.

Landscape Painted with Tea by Milorad Pavic EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Serbia flag Serbia
Description:
A failed architect's search for his father, an officer who vanished in Greece during World War II, becomes a labyrinthine puzzle, inextricably bound to the history of the ancient monastery on Mount Athos.

25.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel EN

Rating: 4 (21 votes)
Country: Europe / Spain flag Spain
Description:
Yann Martel's beloved Life of Pi-- recently made into a stunning 3D film directed by Ang Lee-- is now available in a deluxe pocket edition with leatherette cover.

26.

Little Foxes Took Up Matches by Katya Kazbek EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
When Mitya was two years old, he swallowed his grandmother’s sewing needle. For his family, it marks the beginning of the end, the promise of certain death. For Mitya, it is a small, metal treasure that guides him from within. As he grows, his life mirrors the uncertain future of his country, which is attempting to rebuild itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union, torn between its past and the promise of modern freedom. Mitya finds himself facing a different sort of ambiguity: is he a boy, as everyone keeps telling him, or is he not quite a boy, as he often feels? After suffering horrific... continue



29.

Meister und Margarita by Michail Bulgakow DE

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Ukraine flag Ukraine
Description:
Ohne Frage: Michail Bulgakows Meister und Margarita ist Kult! Schon als der Roman – 26 Jahre nach dem Tod des Autors – stark zensiert erstmals in den 60er Jahren erschien, lernten viele seiner Landsleute ihn auswendig; heimlich angefertigte Kopien der herausgestrichenen Stellen kursierten und die verhexte Wohnung Nr. 50 in der Sadowaja – der zentrale Handlungsort des Romans, von dem aus der Teufel namens Woland, der Riesenkater Behemoth und viele andere die Stadt Moskau auf den Kopf stellen – wurde zur Pilgerstätte. Und bis heute ist die Zahl der Verehrer für ... continue

30.

My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci EN

Rating: 3 (3 votes)
Country: Europe / Kosovo flag Kosovo
Description:
A love story set in two countries in two radically different moments in time, bringing together a young man, his mother, a boa constrictor, and one capricious cat. In 1980s Yugoslavia, a young Muslim girl is married off to a man she hardly knows, but what was meant to be a happy match goes quickly wrong. Soon thereafter her country is torn apart by war and she and her family flee. Years later, her son, Bekim, grows up a social outcast in present-day Finland, not just an immigrant in a country suspicious of foreigners, but a gay man in an unaccepting society. Aside from casual hookups, his only... continue