Magical realism in contemporary St. Petersburg prose: the grotesque novel “The House of Gargalesis” by S. Arno

The research aims to identify elements of magical realism in the novel “The House of Gargalesis” by the contemporary St. Petersburg writer S. Arno. The article examines the genre singularity of contemporary St. Petersburg prose using the aforementioned novel as an example and determines the belonging of the work under consideration to the genre of magical realism, which represents the scientific originality of the research. The recently published novel “The House of Gargalesis” (2025) has not yet been the subject of specific analysis. As a result, it is proven that this novel is the result of the author’s reflection on certain ethical problems of society, and also combines various unusual artistic techniques that reveal the poetics of the author’s text and allow the novel to be classified as a work of magical realism. Combining the main elements and techniques of this genre (topical issues, verisimilitude, recognizable historical reality, impassivity of narration, social satire, dystopia, alteration of spatio-temporal categories, distorted reality, mythologism, absurdism, parody, grotesque), the author raises acute social problems and, due to the original principles of plot construction, keeps the reader in suspense until the very end of the work.