Augusto Roa Bastos Books

June 13, 1917 – April 26, 2005

Augusto Roa Bastos was a seminal Paraguayan novelist and short story writer, recognized as a towering figure in 20th-century Latin American literature. His work is profoundly shaped by his experiences with dictatorial regimes and life in exile, masterfully blending Paraguayan myths, history, and the Guaraní language within a baroque style of magical realism. Roa Bastos gained renown for his intricate novels that often confront the theme of the dictator, delving into the inner lives of rulers and the collective destinies of nations. His distinctive neobaroque style, weaving reality with mythic elements, secured his international acclaim and a lasting place in literary history.

I the Supreme
Augusto Roa Bastos
433 pages
16 hours of reading
4.1(29)Add rating
Latin America has seen, time and again, the rise of dictators, Supreme Leaders possessed of the dream of absolute power, who sought to impose their mad visions of Perfect Order on their own peoples. Latin American writers, in turn, have responded with fictional portraits of such figures, and no novel of this genre is as universally esteemed as Augusto Roa Bastos's I the Supreme, a book that draws on and reimagines the career of the man who was "elected" Supreme Dictator for Life in Paraguay in 1814.By turns grotesque, comic, and strangely moving, I the Supreme is a profound meditation on the uses and abuses of power—over men, over events, over language itself.

I the Supreme