Transcultural magical realism: a comparative analysis of Stephen King’s American supernatural fiction and Nazar Eshonqul’s Central Asian narratives

This article is the first systematic comparative study of American writer Stephen King and Central Asian writer Nazar Eshonqul in the theoretical context of magical realism. It stretches the traditional limits of genre and the Western-centric approach to comparative literature that has long characterized it. This study examines the expression of magical realism in American and Central Asian cultures in a comparative manner by comparing King’s novels IT, The Shining, and Doctor Sleep with representative short stories by Eshonqul. The analysis reveals that while King’s works are typically categorized as horror fiction, they are magical realism because the supernatural is normalized in the context of everyday American suburban reality. In contrast, Eshonqul’s stories combine Sufi mysticism with modernist narrative techniques in order to investigate the construction of a post-Soviet Central Asian identity. This comparative approach shows obvious contrasts between individualistic and communal societies. In King’s fiction, supernatural elements are used to address issues of institutional power and individual freedom, while in Eshonqul’s stories, magical elements are used to advance the theme of cultural reconstruction and shared spiritual values. This study adds new theoretical perspectives to cross-cultural magical realism and addresses an important research gap in American-Central Asian comparative literature. These findings go beyond the Latin American origins of the theory of magical realism and demonstrate the genre’s universal role in the negotiation of institutional and cultural rupture through individual resolution in King’s works, communal healing in Eshonqul’s narratives, and a matter-of-fact presentation of the supernatural.

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