The Influence of Latin American Magical Realism on Tibetan Literature in the 1980s: Modernity and Religion in Zhaxi Dawa’s Novel

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between Latin American magical realism and Zhaxi Dawa’s novel Tibet: the Mysterious Years. This exceptional relationship (and scarcely researched so far) shows how the parameters of the Latin American narrative were decisive for the development of a new Tibetan novel in the 80s of the last century. This article also explains how the idea of recovering the traditional culture, history and identity suppressed during the Chinese socialist period (1949-1976) oriented Tibetan writers towards a broad assimilation of the ideological and aesthetic concepts of magical realism, radically transforming contemporary Chinese literature.