Magical Realism

In the text The Book Thief, written by Markus Zusak, magical realism is used to convey certain points of the text and messages to the reader. He does this by using a realistic narrative with a surrealist element. The majority of the book takes place in a small town on the outskirts of Munich, called Molching, the reader is led to believe that Molching is a real place, and this is done by using real place names surrounding the fictional area, such as referencing its distance to Munich, which is a real place in Germany, and it is also positioned on The Amper River, which is a real river that passes through the distance to Munich that Molching is said to be located. The use of a fictional location gives the author of the text more freedom in their writing, due to the fact that he is able to give places and streets names that have greater meanings, instead of replacing existing places, which detracts from the realism of the text. An example of this is the name of the street that the main character Liesel lives on. Himmel street translates to heaven, and this name references the great memories that Liesel experiences on the street but also alludes to the eventual deaths of all the residents of the street except for Liesel.