Open Access Peer-reviewed Research Article

Magic realism and science fiction: Salman Rushdie’s inter-generic writing

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Submitted   Jun 7, 2021
Published   Jun 28, 2021
Issue    Vol 2 No 1 (2021)
DOI   10.25082/IJAH.2021.01.001

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Xiaohong Zhang corresponding author
School of Foreign Languages, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
Peiyi Ou
1. School of Foreign Languages, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China; 2. University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China

Abstract

Salman Rushdie’s fiction is well-known for its abundant mixes of magic realist and science fiction textual elements. By resorting to three writing strategies, namely “meta-writing,” “split-writing” and writing about identity-related issues, Rushdie generates a type of “inter-generic writing” that serves to voice authorial appeals for hybridity, impurity and plurality. Meta-writing is an authorial construction of the neo-historicist verisimilitude justifying the legitimacy and self-sufficiency of literary writing. Split-writing reveals “the alterity of selves,” thus advocating tolerance and pluralism. Writing about identity-related issues is no less than a politicized identity construction, in the quest for multiple postcolonial subjectivities in the “Third Space.”

Keywords
magic realism, science fiction, intergenericity, “Inter-generic” writing, dialogism

Article Details

Supporting Agencies
This paper was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (NSSF-19BWW065), and by the Department of Education of Guangdong Province (2017WZDXM035).
How to Cite
Zhang, X., & Ou, P. (2021). Magic realism and science fiction: Salman Rushdie’s inter-generic writing. International Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2(1), 36-43. https://doi.org/10.25082/IJAH.2021.01.001
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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