(Marlon James and Kazuo Ishiguro’s most recent novels come to mind, which relentlessly attempt to present the merits of fantasy to their respective bookish audiences.) Genre-bending is too often noticeably aggressive, as if an author thinks they will be the one to finally herald the relevance of an overlooked, under-appreciated literary species. Ghosts, spirits, and devils were a thing for comics and chunky TOR paperbacks highbrow fiction didn’t deal with the speculative, and the ones that did hid behind the mantle of “magical realism.” Naturally, this division of genres summoned a legion of challengers, hell-bent on proving that these two worlds could co-exist. For a long time, it felt like there was no place for magic in contemporary literature.
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