A 20th-century Latin American literary style that weaves together realistic and fantastic events. The effect is to give a sense of profound mystery to ordinary life, and a sense of ordinariness to profound mystery.

An American art movement that began in 1943 to the 1950's which blends precise and detailed realistic images with the imaginary and fantastic. The art style had its early influences from the Surrealism movement.

Magic realism (or magical realism) is an artistic genre in which magical elements appear in an otherwise realistic setting. As used today the term is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous. The term was initially used by German art critic Franz Roh to describe painting which demonstrated an altered reality, but was later used by Venezuelan Arturo Uslar-Pietri to describe the work of certain Latin American writers.