Which Venezuelan writer used 'realismo mágico' in literary criticism in 1948?

The Venezuelan writer associated with using “realismo mágico” in literary criticism in 1948 is Arturo Uslar-Pietri. He used the phrase in his essay collection *Letras y hombres de Venezuela*, applying it to Venezuelan and Latin American narrative.

Uslar-Pietri’s formulation described fiction in which ordinary reality contains mystery without being explained away. His idea helped establish the literary meaning of “magic realism,” although the phrase had an earlier history in art criticism. German critic Franz Roh originally used “magical realism” in 1925 to describe a tendency in painting.

The term is sometimes confused with Alejo Carpentier’s “lo real maravilloso,” introduced in 1949 in connection with *The Kingdom of This World*. That was a related but distinct concept. Uslar-Pietri had already published the short story “La lluvia” in 1935, often cited as an early example of the sensibility before he named it. He was also a novelist, essayist, journalist, diplomat, and major Venezuelan intellectual, not merely a literary theorist.