Ever since the era of Romanticism, it has been a commonplace to link language and literature to ideas of nationhood. The ideal “nation” is understood to be one that unites all people speaking the same language within a common territory, effectively constituting a nation-state. This principle undergirds most nineteenth- and twentieth-century processes of nation formation in Europe. In some cases, this has led to the breakup of larger territorial units organized along earlier and different principles into smaller units. In other cases, it has led to the unification of territories previously divided. Notwithstanding the principle cited, many of the countries thus constituted have within their borders linguistic minorities. Some European countries have no language of their own, using one or more languages that are claimed, and usually also perceived, as the “national” language of other, bigger countries. In all instances, literature, as the most visible and enduring embodiment of a people’s language, serves as a binding element.

The overwhelming majority of works on world literature hitherto have been written by Western scholars. The almost endemic neglect of literatures other than European or Western in these writings over the last twenty years or so has drawn heavy critical fire. Usually, such Eurocentrism has been seen as the result of either ignorance on the part of these scholars or on an ingrained cultural bias. However, a deliberate concentration on European literature, or even on a very restricted version of the latter, may also be a strategic choice in particular times and under particular circumstances. A 1929 essay by the German literary scholar Victor Klemperer illustrates my point.

In contemporary parlance, magical realism is most often considered to be a phenomenon of Latin American origin that as of the 1960s spread to the rest of the world, and primarily to postcolonial or emerging literatures. It should be remembered, though, that between the two World Wars in Europe there arose something we might call magic realism, to distinguish it from later magical realism. The roots of this European movement are to found in German and Italian literature, with a later development in Flemish literature. Names to mention are Ernst Jünger, Massimo Bontempelli and Hubert Lampo. Later authors to have been linked to the mode, though now usually retrospectively with reference to the magical variant, are Günther Grass, Milan Kundera, Angela Carter, José Saramago and Carlos Ruiz Zafón.