Someone reading Portobello Photographer asked, "When London's apocalypse occurred, why were the saviours ravens, not humans?" He meant it as a general critique of magical realism and the genre. I had, of course, prepared for the question. So, what if the story tends to be exceedingly weird? The genre truly defies nature; it’s rebellious and individualistic; it likes to stand tall and stand apart. The best way to define fabulism is by example. I’d had to defend my love of the fantastical in almost every workshop I’d gone through.
Fabulist fiction exists in the no-man 's-land between “genre” and “literary” fiction, drawing heavily from each. It has this in common with a number of other subgenres—surrealism, magical realism, and weird fiction. A lot of books could be reasonably given several of these labels, just as a lot of books could be reasonably shelved as both literary fiction and fantasy. What defines fabulism in my mind, though, is the use of fantastical elements to explore personal, human themes. Just like my other novels, the story pursues both Fabulism and New Wave Fabulism.
New Wave Fabulism also has its own guidelines, of course, but they are more malleable and more fitting to a larger geographical context. The defining idea: the New Wave Fabulist narrative is always about the role of the imagination.
Fabulist fiction tends to privilege internal and interpersonal conflict over large-scale, action-heavy plots; its elements of unreality follow a kind of magical thinking. When something strange occurs, the story is less interested in why it’s happening—its origin or mechanism—than in what it means, in symbolic or emotional logic. Fabulism at its best is strange, lovely, and heartfelt, braiding the personal with the fantastical, and the impossible with the familiar.
For those interested in fantasy, these two concepts may be a little confusing. That's why I think it's important to distinguish between the two. For quite some time, magical realism was my most read genre, so there wasn’t a lack of titles to choose from when it came to selecting my favourites. Magical realism has a long history as a genre, and elements of it are often combined with different genre elements like horror, science fiction, romance, or even autobiographical writing. Below you’ll find my favourites in magical realism and new wave fabulism. And if you choose to read these books, I am sure that you will better understand the themes of magical realism and new wave fabulism in literature.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
The City & the City by China Miéville
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
Crystal Eaters by Shane Jones