This seminar is delivered by Historian and Linguist from Oxford University, Nikita Nunes.

This seminar explores magical realism, a Latin American literary genre that blends fantasy with the everyday to critique history and politics. Through Isabel Allende’s La casa de los espíritus and Elena Garro’s Los recuerdos del porvenir, participants will examine how these works portray political and patriarchal oppression in contexts like Pinochet’s Chile and 1920s Mexico.

Ideal for students of Spanish, History, and Politics, the session highlights how literature can challenge historical narratives. With an interdisciplinary focus, it encourages critical thinking about the relationship between novels and their sociopolitical contexts, offering fresh insights into modern history and beyond.

Students looking to explore this area further could look at:

• Cohn, Deborah – ‘To See or Not to See: Invisibility, Clairvoyance and Re-visions of History in La casa de los espíritus’ - specific to magical realism

• Swanson, Phillip, Latin American Fiction: A Short Introduction