These Authors Like Isabel Allende Are Perfect for Magical Realism Fans

The story of Adam and Eve is one of the most well-known in human history. Gioconda Belli's novel reimagines that tale with a sly eye towards how its women were portrayed. 

Eve is bored by paradise and chooses to eat the apple, coaxed by a mischievous serpent who wants humanity to choose free will over servitude in Eden. Now, they are outcasts and experience everything for the first time: hunger, pain, fear, pregnancy, and murder.  

Raimund Gregorius is a Latin teacher at a Swiss college who decides to abandon his staid life for a more exciting one after a chance encounter with an enigmatic Portuguese woman. He takes the night train to Lisbon and carries with him a book by Amadeu de Prado, a doctor whose writings on love, life, and loneliness inspire him. 

Gregorius becomes obsessed by these tales and wants to find the man himself, or at least traces of him in the beautiful city of Lisbon. 

Shay is surprised when her husband Senna declares his intention to build her a spectacular dream house on an idyllic beach on the coast of Madagascar. But that home, the Red Island House, is more than it seems. 

As its new mistress, Shay is torn between her privileged American upbringing and life on a whole new continent where her ancestors were born. The more time passes, the more Shay is drawn to Madagascar's past and its magical history tainted by colonialism. This culture clash will force Shay to make a decision that will change her family's life. 

Pono is the headstrong matriarch of a vast Polynesian family. Her forebearers are part of Hawaii's history and her granddaughters are seeking to forge their own paths. 

Ming, Vanya, Rachel and Jess, all mixed race, want to reclaim their indigenous heritage, but doing so intwines them with a world of magic out with their control. Pono can metamorphose into a sea creature, and her powers have the potential to redefine Hawaii. 

The Levin family of Denmark are rich, successful, and extremely messy. Beginning with the great-grandfather Isidor Levin and his emigration from Poland in the 19th century, the Levins have long been considered a symbol of successful assimilation with their new home country and rising from rags to riches. 

But the true story is even darker. At the heart of the narrative is the grandmother, Katze, and her memories of life in Copenhagen during the Second World War. The Levin family's success was long tainted by trauma, from drug addiction and suicide to political strife and sex work. Generations of Levins reveal the truth behind a fairy-tale family. 

Emília and Luzia dos Santos are sisters who works as seamstresses in rural Brazil, where land barons feud with outlaw cangaceiros and cause bloodshed across the countryside. Emília, dreams of falling in love with a gentleman and escaping to a big city. Luzia, scarred by a childhood accident, escapes the real world through her sewing and prayers. 

Tragedy strikes when she is abducted by a group of cangaceiros led by the infamous Hawk. Emília marries a wealthy man with political ambitions while Luzia becomes a powerful rebel. Their bond is strong even as they remain separated for years. When Luzia's life is threatened, Emília will risk everything to save her. 

In the Summer of 1967, the turmoil of the Maoist revolution has spilled over onto the shores of Hong Kong. Frankie and Kate are a pair of American sisters living abroad while their war photographer father is on assignment in Vietnam. Marianne, their beautiful but remote mother, keeps the family close but the sisters couldn't be further apart in every other way. 

But they're both bound by their curiosity to see more of this strange world they now inhabit and are largely left alone to explore. One day in a village market, they decide to explore — with tragic results. 

Marina is an elderly Russian woman whose memories are fading fast. In the fall of 1941, the German army approached the outskirts of Leningrad. Following the siege, the city's inhabitants face starvation and tyranny. 

Marina, then a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum, along with other staff members, was instructed to take down the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping, yet leave the frames hanging empty on the walls. To retain her sanity and quietly rebel against the Germans, she memorized these masterpieces for her mind palace. It's her only refuge from the horrors of war... 

In 1979, five toddlers were found alone in a luxury boat tied to a dock in Puerto Rico after a hurricane that ravaged the island. Their origins are unknown, and they're soon separated to be raised by different families. Yet they remain bound together, honorary siblings who are connected by their unique situations. 

As adults, Taina, Holly, Adrian, and Raymond have been summoned by the fifth, David, to an island off the coast of Connecticut and the family home of David's ex-girlfriend, Julia. But along with the joy of this family reunion comes a lot of pain. 

Having been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer—and experiencing flashbacks to the time before the hurricane—David believes that discovering the truth of where they all came from will help with his healing. But what if some truths aren't meant to be discovered? 

Cuban-born American novelist Cristina Garcia's debut novel was a finalist for the National Book Award when it was released in 1992. Its heroine is Celia Almeida, a young woman living in Havana who falls in love with a married Spaniard named Gustavo. 

When he leaves to go back home, Celia falls into a depressive state that no doctor can cure. Eventually, she marries Jorge del Pino, who leaves her home alone for long periods of time as he travels for business. 

His mother and sister are cruel to Celia, and things only get worse when her daughter Lourdes is born. Over the course of her lifetime, Celia is forced to hold herself and her family together as Cuba becomes a nation in flux thanks to the revolution and intense political turmoil.