Space, Time, Memory : Magical Realism and Postcolonialism in Hugo Loetscher’s Prose

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Since the publication of Gabriel García Márquez’ "Cien años de soledad" ("One hundred Years of Solitude") in 1967, Magical Realism has been a style of writing that has aroused great interest both among literary critics and the readership and has been mostly perceived, firstly, as a purely Latin American phenomenon without an equivalent in any other literary tradition, and secondly, as a postcolonial counter-discourse to allegedly typical European rationality. However, the novels of the Swiss writer Hugo Loetscher serve as a perfect riposte to that claims, since Loetscher developed Magical Realism into a powerful creative device for fiction as well as journalism. Thus, Loetscher’s work demonstrates that Magical Realism has transcended the Latin American space and has to be conceived of as a globally acting genre, and as such, it is a characteristic example of World Literature.