Manifestation of magical realism in the novel "Alrajol allazi yakrah nafsahu" written by Hanna Mina

Magical realism is a modern method of story writing in which the writer mixes such elements as "mystery and magic" and “imagination and illusion” with real incidents in such a skillful way that real and surreal characters and incidents appear completely natural and plausible to readers. Hanna Mina is one of the capable contemporary Syrian novelists most of whose themes regard the differences between the poor and the rich‚ a far distance between man’s wishes and everyday life realities‚ fighting for social justice, and the French dominance. He has written a novel called "Alrajol allazi yakrah nafsahu" (A man who hates himself) using the magical realism method. The present study is a descriptive–analytical one and aims to review the magical realism parameters and the way they are used in this story. The findings of the research show that the novel is based on magic realism to reflect life problems and collapse of traditional infrastructures as well as the author’s and other people’s mutual impressions in negative and positive perspectives. Also, the novelist has been able to display his concerns to readers by combining reality and dream in an artistic way. Among the parameters used in his novel, the most noticeable ones are the coexistence between reality and magic‚ symbol and legend‚ and bureaucracy and injustice in the society.