If you enjoyed Isabel Allende’s sensuous, feminine, magical style and her romantic plots, you will surely be delighted by Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate. Esquivel shares with Allende the ability to capture intense and passionate emotions in beautifully simple words. Like Water for Chocolate is also tinged with beautifully impossible magical realism.

        For those who like “milder” magical realism, and would enjoy a more complex and rich style, Nobel prize Gabriel García Márquez and Miguel Ángel Asturias would be perfect. One of the most acclaimed and celebrated Latin American writers, the Colombian Márquez explores Latin American culture and politics with witty irony. He is also considered the most prominent author in magical realism. Miguel Ángel Asturias, the only Guatemalan Literature Nobel Prize, has a much more complex style, and a more brutal critique to Guatemalan society.

       Like Allende, Julia Alvarez explores emigration and feminism with a delightfully simple style. Other authors you might be interested in include Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar and Juan Rulfo.