I would recommend Borges as one of the greatest writers in this genre of all time.  His book Labyrinths is particularly thought-provoking.  I'm surprised that you reject science fiction - there are lots of examples of magical realism - Michael Moorcock's stories about Jerry Cornelius (e.g. The Final Programme), Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ursula LeGuin's Lathe of Heaven and a whole heap of Philip K. Dick... Science fiction is as much, if not more, about alternate ways of looking at reality than it is about science.  Ted Chiang (asian american) has written some wonderful stories that would be highly relevant (e.g. The truth of fact, the truth of feelling) - he's most famous for the story that became Arrival, but has written much more widely.  I'd recommend having a look at Darko Suvin's Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1979) as an introduction to the academic perspectives on the SF genre as one of novelty and cognitive estrangement rather than science (Suvin rejected Star Wars as merely a space-western, but includes e.g. Brecht in his definition - and it's the most commonly used definition in SF academia today).  Writing off science fiction reduces your options considerably!

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

Thank you all for taking the time to respond – I appreciate each one of you.

@Christopher Menadue – I should have clarified: my rejection of SF (for now) is  deliberate. It's not that I will never explore this area, but for now, I need a really narrow focus and the works must tick the boxes of MR and be set in the real world. Close reading of fewer but relevant texts is what I need for now. Chiang, I agree, is great.

@Erica Terranova – I forgot about Murakami. Thank you! I'll check out Angela Carter.

I would think that one the earliest explicitly 'magical realist' novels is Alejo Carpentier's novel about the Haitian Revolution, The Kingdom of this World (1949). In the prologue, he outlines what he calls the "marvellous real."

Another classic would be Günther Grass' The Tin Drum (1959), which influenced Rushdie's Midnight's Children (1981).

http://instruct.uwo.ca/english/785a/Prologue.html

Jan Carson's novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears (Dublin: Liberties Press, 2014). Not Sc-fi in the slightest and absolutely rooted in the 'real' world issues faced by a young kid who finds his situation difficult.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21932882-malcolm-orange-disappears 

Thank you, Raphael and Paul – all of your suggestions are spot on, and  I'm in for a research/reading treat!

I would also pick La vie et demie by Sony Labou Tansi 

Itranslated to English as Life and a half

"translated into English as Life and a hslf'

Angela Carter

Ben Okri

I'd suggest Ben okri's The Famished Road and Nnedi Okorafor's What Sunny saw in the Flames.

Hello Vimbai,

You can try Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Piano or Les Grandes Blondes by Jean Echenoz 

and to give you, as you say, an "Asian" example, I would say The Wind up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

I have to mention that non of these novels (as well as the authors) are not known for Magic Realism, but we don't have to forget that there is no crystal clear frontiers to any literary school or movement (specially in XX century)......having said that, you can also consider The Metamorphosis by Kafka as a Magic Realism story.

Dr.  Nabila Naimi · Hassiba Benbouali University of Chlef

 Hello,

 I may suggest to you:

1- "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle"  by Japanese author Haruki Murakami

2- " Like water For Chocolate" by the Mexican author Laura Esquivel.

3- " The House Of the Spirits " By the Chillian author Isabel Allende.

Good Luck

Two authors  I liked in this area are Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Siddarth Dhanvant Sanghvi

Chinwe Jane Okolo, thank you for that recommendation – I've not read Sony Labou Tansi before.

Nivin El Asdoudi, thank you too. I've read Okri – he's brilliant – and have put in an order for Angela Carter, as you're the second person to recommend her work.

 Saeedat Bolajoko Aliyu, Mehdi Alizadeh, Dr. Naimi, Alpana Gupta – thank you all. All excellent recommendations and I have lots to explore over the remainder of the summer!

Nnedi Okorafor is extraordinary, and her current success is well-deserved.

I agree that there is some fluidity and genre overlap with many of the recommended novels and authors. I'm interested in isolating the elements within stories that point towards magical realism and how well the elements work as literary devices. I appreciate everyone who has taken the trouble to answer.

Thank you again!

I suggest you to read novels wrote by Guimarães Rosa, brazilian author.

I suggest the following:

1. Naguib Mahfouz's Arabian Nights and Days

2. Ibrahim Al-Kuni's The Bleeding of the Stone.

3. Isabelle Allende's  Th e House of the Spirits.

4. Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. 

5. Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon.

Revert to this link for additional information:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/143.Favorite_Magical_Realism_Novels

Good Luck 

David Almond's Skellig demands that the reader decide what is magic and what is real,  and leaves the options very open for personal interpretation.

The Book of Sand and other works by Jorge Luise Borge is a fine reading for magic realism. I just love his fine condensation.

All wonderful suggestions! A less taught one that my students LOVE is Women without Men by Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur. Since my students are not good at long novels, I use Murakami's short stories: TV People, The Elephant Vanishes, Sleep and The Little Green Monster. I find Borges Ficciones collection iis great to teach - and the stories in Blow Up by Julio Cortazar, especially Axolotl and Night Face Up. For Ben Okri I use the stories in Stars of the New Curfew.  Including Gogol's The Nose and Kafka's Metamorphosis can add some historical perspective too. 

I would highly recommend Susanna Clarke's novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (2004), an otherwise realist novel about the rediscovery of magic by two very different men in the early nineteenth century.

Since you also seem to be interested in this question from the perspective of world literature, I would also recommend Patrick Suskind's Perfume (1985), in which a young Frenchman is born in the late eighteenth century with an extraordinary sense of smell, while possessing no scent of his own.

I recommend highly The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols.

I rrecommend On the Road to Baghdad. A Picaresque Novel of Magical Adventures, by Guneli Gun

I highly recommend too Zama, by Antonio Di Benedetto. This novel has been translated in 2016.

Amos Tutuola, Ben Okri both are Nigerian writers and Ben Okri is an accomplished novelist whose works are currently making waves. For me, his defining work and his arguably most recognized one is the novel, The Famished Road.

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. The Once and Future King, by T.H. White. Just about anything by Haruki Murakami.

Also The Turn of the Screw by Henry James,made into films in 1961 and several thereafter, and The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams, made into a 1988 film.

I would suggest Sony Labou Tansi again, The Shameful state or a French version called Machinla Hernie.

(Note: I am aware this question was asked in August 2017)

Neil Gaiman would be the first author I think of - he is well known for rewriting myths into modern culture and the 'real' world (e.g. in "American Gods", "Good Omens", and "Anansi Boys"), reframing fairy tales (e.g. collections such as "Smoke and Mirrors" and "Unnatural Creatures") and writing new mythologies based on parts of other stories, featuring modern characters and cities (e.g. "Coraline", "Neverwhere"). From what I have heard, it should be noted that magical realism as a genre is so loosely defined that it will be difficult to truly outline it. This will have consequences for the accuracy of your research.

I know that this is about novels, but the film Pan's Labyrinth is in my view one of the greatest films ever. I understand Guillermo del Toro has written at least one novel as well. I enthusiastically second the motion for Neil Gaiman.