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Magical realism, which was very much present in The House of the Spirits, is not present in my second book, Of Love and Shadows. And that's because my second book was based on a political crime that took place in Chile after the assassination of Salvador Allende, so it is a journalistic history. There is no magical realism in The Infinite Plan, Aphrodite, Daughter of Fortune or Portrait in Sepia, yet there is plenty of it in my first novel for children, City of the Beasts. The term magical realism has become quite popular and controversial since the 1980s. The term is a combination of an oxymoron. What the narrative mode offers is a way to discuss alternative views of reality. It was first used to refer to the German painterly movement that tried to capture the mystery of life behind superficial reality. It was later introduced in the 1940s as an expression of a blend of realistic and magical view of life in Latin America, expressed through its art and literature in the context of Latin America's various cultures. In the 1950s it was used in relation to Latin American fiction, but has since been adopted as the main term used to refer to all narrative fiction that includes magical events in realistic factual narrative. Haruki Murakami is a Japanese author who uses magical realism to explore themes such as loneliness and self-discovery in his works. Magical realism is a writing style that combines realistic elements with fantasy elements, and focuses on the effects of magical elements on characters.