Hi everyone, I'm a Brooklyn-based writer, and my brand new short story collection "The Earth No Longer Exists" is out now from Alien Buddha Press! It consists of 10 bizarre, surrealist stories influenced by writers like Richard Brautigan, Aimee Bender, Etgar Keret, and Franz Kafka.

You cam check it out here: https://linktr.ee/theearthnolongerexists

I only lasted a week at Salvador's newly opened restaurant. A cozy, small place with typical red brick walls and dark wooden tables, a gleaming kitchen with white ceramic surfaces to showcase its cleanliness. And of course, it remained spotless! It was never really used.

Salvador's Caffe!

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The idea was that the place would open at noon to serve lunch to the workers building the nearby constructions. You could even tell the time by the construction noise ceasing and the streets momentarily resting from the screeching metal cacophony coming from all directions.

The menu was also supposed to be ready by noon. However, it was only when Salvador finished writing the menu. Painting it.

I never saw a happier man than Salvador when, after opening the place, he bought a green chalkboard and boxes of pastel-colored chalks to write the daily menu; he practically did nothing else during the short period the place was operating.

He started in the morning, just when I arrived to clean the restaurant and make coffee for everyone, he was already poised at that chalkboard, barely a meter and a half by 50 centimeters.

But the dimensions of the chalkboard didn't matter, because Salvador made them infinite. He would write the menu, yes, but he'd end up turning it into an immense alphabetical landscape; the "A" could be a gigantic palace, the "M" was a mountain range, and the "D" a huge lake of crystal-clear waters rippling in different shades.

He spent the whole morning and afternoon at it, to the point that it was time to serve lunch to the customers who arrived, and the menu wasn't even written on the board yet. Even at 3 in the afternoon, there were still some shadows and textures to add.

The restaurant didn't last long after I left; Salvador's wife left him for one of the workers from a nearby construction.

By the way, for those interested, there's a new course near my house:

"Chalk Pastel Drawing and Painting Course by Salvador."

The place is quite lovely, a small spot with red brick walls and dark wooden tables.

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J.R Fermín

Everyone loved to talk to The Mute Girl...

and talked to her was such a beautiful moment, he communicated with the soul, from the inside, as if the words became great, as if the feeling transcended any code imposed by any human, The Mute Girl did not use signs, without digital grammar rules, she preferred to speak with her body, using it all in a kind of interpretive dance. It was quite an experience to speak with The Mute Girl both for its aesthetic and performative value and for its deep content, each encounter, each conversation was extremely enriching, to the point where everyone sought her for advice receiving revealing messages that seemed to come from their very soul .

Unlike the others, I never understood a single movement / word of The Mute Girl ; I appreciated seeing their conversations but I never managed to communicate with her, and I always kept my suspicions when questioning myself if people understood for sure what she wanted to convey. After interpreting her exotic expression, people left with an idea of ​​what she had meant, that it might not be what she wanted to communicate; but the interlocutors always left with a version of the conversation, and she left with the full sensation of having expressed herself freely, they all smiled whenthe conversation was terminated, everyone went their way.

***

Thanks to her angelic and corporeal eloquence, The Mute Girl was always the first option to give the opening speech of the town fair, every year, the molt prepared his speech, wrote it on a sheet and, in front of everyone, sang the corporeal words written on white paper so much unfold.

Thus, on the night of her last speech, after the typical dances and the diabolical infernal sentences of the priest in the square, The Mute Girl prepared to give her opening speech to the fairs, dancing her words in front of the raging herd of villagers who watched ecstatic the physical interpretation of her ideas, in a dance without music, I watched from the outside and could only think about what the mute wanted to say, and how each could be receiving a completely different message, but satisfactory at the end of the Activity …

Gloriously applauded the crowd, as delighted by a show of those offered by artists who speak with the soul, some cried after the performance of her very successful speech, then prepared to receive the love of all, between applauses, hugs, smiles and thanks, The Mute Girl received the laurels of a grateful town for something as sublimely insignificant as her words …

***

It was almost a month before we realized that The Mute Girl was gone, people began to miss her shrill orange umbrella that warned us invariably of her existence, or the clacking of their wooden sandals on the sidewalk, the drowned scream in her distance greetings, that joy that transmitted at a distance the intense joy she felt when she found someone else’s presence.

We made a procession in general assembly in front of the town square who saw her dance for the last time, we walked in an expectant spectral walk to her house, empty, gloomy, illuminated by the dim lights that entered through the only open window that gave was oponed to the street, through which a boy came in, an then came out with a blanket paper of so much unfolding that it contained the written words of her last speech that so generously gave to the people, which contained the following:

“Cut your crap right now, everyone asks me how I am and that if I have any advice, as if I am a fucking witch, I’m sick and tired of your shit, every day is the same , I mean, Damn! one is glad to meet people in the street, but everything is a question abput life and existence as if I knew about those things, go with other people for that shit let me be quiet.

PS: The priest is sucking the wine from the church after Sunday evening mass, there I leave you valuable information to stop fucking. ”

We never saw The Mute Girl again, from her, we preferred to keep the memory of the character that everyone had created in their heads, they wanted to burn the speech, but I kepted it, in the end, after being the only one who didn’t understand her, I ended up treasuring her greatest gift, her true words …

J.R Fermín

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https://preview.redd.it/cqpa8u5npnnb1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b3da381953529307cd91fafdd8505291c4f44fd

I remember reading a story. I think it begins with someone mapping out Queensland, Australia. They are attempting to describe the whole world. Does anyone know the Magic Realism story I am thinking of?

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Thank you and appreciated.

Hello, I am looking for examples of South-American folklore being used in Magic Realist literature.

Please let me know if you know anything!

I'm unsure what to call works that have magical realism elements, but lack the cultural and political roots. I've heard the word "Fabulist" a few times, but it seems to be a very niche and poorly-defined genre, so I'm not sure how I feel about that.

why items highly subsidized by the government are expensive? Shouldn't subsidy reduce price?

https://www.reddit.com/r/DifferentAngle/comments/w9kze3/items_highly_subsidized_by_the_government_are/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Here’s a playlist for you… Magical Realism by MisterE-703 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7GU1OkBJBiSj4pUUlD96mb?si=W6_dnmssRwKBCu-rVNbW9A

My friend and I recently started a magic realist flash fiction account as a fun quarantine project. We're looking for submissions if anyone is interested. DM me here or on the Instagram account to submit.

https://www.instagram.com/infifteenwords/

Hi all, recently I discovered that this genre exists and that a few of my favourite books have elements of magic realism. These are books by Isabel Allende, Haruki Murakami and Paul Auster. Do you have any recommendations for me to explore this genre further?

if an object gives one the power to hear others thoughts is it considered magic realism? like the setting is real life and all and the only thing is that this object gives you the power to listen to thoughts of others ,, and if you try to get rid of this object but it still turns up every time is that also considered magic realism? asking for a school assignment haha

I low key joined this sub reddit just to share this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_tumor

There is a trope called identical grandson where in some cases the leader of a clan or fictional nation is decided based on how much the descendant or random person resembles them kinda like in Buddhism with the dalhi lama

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_of_the_14th_Dalai_Lama%20Dalai%20Lama%2C%20Tenzin%20Gyatso)

you could use this as a way to explain how one can reincarnate or get the wisdom of the ancestors

Please feed me plotbunnies please! <3

Hi all. I have never read any magic realism before. Where would you suggest or which stories/authors are the best for someone to get into it to start with. Thank you! :)

can we talk about some magic(al) realism please?

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what's you guys' favorite Gabriel Garcia Marquez short story?

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if your favorite writer in the tradition is NOT Garcia Marquez, then who the hell is it!?

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aaaand go.