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Pif Magazine
Pif Magazine |
Margin 
You've probably heard the term "magical realism" used to describe the fictions of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie and Italo Calvino, among others. But what exactly is magical realism? Or is that magic realism? (Actually either is OK.) Margin, a brand-spanking-new 'zine edited by Tamara Kaye Sellman, wants to set the record straight. In Sellman's vision, Margin will evolve into the hub for magical realist activity on the Web – a combination "perpetual anthology" and information exchange. It will comprise not only new fiction and essays, but also links to other magical realism pages, extensive bibliographies of magical realist fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and other related content – all in all, a pretty ambitious project. So about that definition... Editor Sellman admits that she is perhaps better at defining what magical realism is not than pinpointing what it is. However, she works hard to provide a nutshell definition, most notably in the checklist for potential contributors offered in Margin's "guidelines:" (Answer yes to one or more of the following and there's a chance your story is magical realist.) Such questions include:"Is there an event in my story that cannot be explained by universal laws?","Is my story highly dimensional or multi-layered?", "Will my reader witness a collision of disparate realms in my story?" Sellman writes that "Ultimately, the goal of Margin is to create a resting place for contemporary stories of magical realism.These might be considered misfit works otherwise: stories which aren't fantastical enough to be fantasy, stories which aren't straight enough to be mainstream, stories which are, perhaps, too slippery (in a realistic sense) to fall under the literary fiction wing with any ease." Of course, as any English major will tell you, constructing genres is a fairly dangerous business, and readers with a bit more insight into the subject may take exception to Sellman's rather pliable definition. Newer readers, however (folks who may have been smitten by the novels of, say, Rushdie and who are now hungry for more of the same) will no doubt find Sellman (and Margin as a whole) to be a fairly useful guide. Sellman's passion is clearly fiction (at press time, there's no hint that poetry will be added in the future), and, accordingly, stories and novel excerpts make up the bulk of Margin's content. There is quite an assortment of work here, from a global line up of writers. Highly recommended are Brandy Bauer's "The Mapmaker" and Atar Hadari's wonderful short "Late." If you like what you read here, click through to Margin's "Recommended Reading" section, where you can get a better idea of the wealth of material generally classifiable under the magical realist umbrella. Tell us what you think. Email talkback@pifmagazine.com Want Pif to review your zine? A graduate of Columbia University and The University of Pennsylvania, life-long New Jerseyan and New York Mets fan, Tom Hartman now lives in Philadelphia where he's an Associate Poetry Editor at Painted Bride Quarterly. Over the years his writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Photo Review, City Paper (Philadelphia), and Philadelphia Weekly. When he's not writing he spends far too much time hating the Atlanta Braves.
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