A collection of essays that explores magical realism as a momentary interruption of realism in US ethnic literature, showing how these moments of magic realism serve to memorialize, address, and redress traumatic ethnic histories.

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PART I: TRAUMATIC INHERITANCES: THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF MAGIC 1. Trauma, Magic, and Genealogy; Lyn Di Iorio 2. The Exhaustion of Magical Realism in the Work of Junot Díaz and Roberto Bolaño; Roman de la Campa 3. Flying to Save Her Life: Bad Luck, Bad Choices, Bad Mothers in Gina B. Nahai's Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith; Ibis Gómez-Vega PART II: SENSORY IRRUPTIONS; MAGICAL SENSIBILITIES 4. Flashes of Transgression: The Fukú, Negative Aesthetics, and the Future in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz; Richard Perez 5. Rhythm and Freedom: African American Magical Realism and the Creation of a Home Country; Angela J. Francis 6. Of Magical Gourds and Secret Senses: The Uses of Magical Realism in Asian American Literature; Begoña Simal-González PART III: PROPHETIC PRACTICES; MYTHIC KNOWLEDGES 7. 'We, the shamans, eat tobacco and sing': Figures of Shamanic Power in US and Latin American Magical Realism; Wendy Faris 8. Mythic Realism, Dreams, and Prophecy in James Welch's The Heartsong of Charging Elk; Lori Burlingame 9. Native American (Mythic) Realism: The Infusion of Myth into Magical Realist Politics in Contemporary Native American Literature; Allison E. Brown PART IV: MAGIC, MEMORY, AND SPACE 10. Lifting 'the Weight of the Continent': Magical Realism on the North American Landscape; Shannin Schroeder 11. Post-Holocaust Fiction and the Magical Realist Turn; Caroline Rody 12. Mama Day: Where Gothicism and Magical Realism Meet; Donald J. Reilly