Augusto Roa Bastos
Augusto Roa Bastos was a prominent Paraguayan writer and a leading figure in Latin American literature, recognized for his rich exploration of themes related to political violence and historical memory. Born in Iturbe, Paraguay, he grew up bilingual, speaking both Spanish and Guaraní, which informed his literary voice. Roa Bastos’s early life included participation in the Chaco War, an experience that deeply influenced his writing, notably in his novel *Son of Man*. His literary career began with early unpublished works, but he gained significant recognition in the 1950s, particularly after winning an international literary prize for *Son of Man*, which later inspired a successful film adaptation.
A significant portion of his career was shaped by his exile during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, which catalyzed his commitment to addressing human rights issues in his writing. His landmark novel, *I the Supreme*, published in 1974, showcases a blend of modernist and postmodern narrative styles, delving into the complexities of Paraguayan history. Roa Bastos received numerous accolades, including the prestigious Miguel de Cervantes Prize in 1989. He continued to write until his death in 2005, leaving behind a legacy that has influenced subsequent generations of Latin American writers.
Augusto Roa Bastos
Paraguayan novelist and short-story writer
- Born: June 13, 1917
- Place of Birth: Asunción, Paraguay
- Died: April 26, 2005
- Place of Death: Asunción, Paraguay
Biography
Augusto Antonio Roa Bastos has undoubtedly remained one of the most prominent figure in modern Paraguayan literature and one of the leading novelists of Latin America. He spent his childhood in Iturbe, a small village in the Guaitá region, where he learned both Spanish and Guaraní, which is the dominant language of the country. Thus, he was exposed to a particular form of rural bilingualism as a child, which provided one of his most distinguishing traits as a writer.
During his formative years Roa Bastos was sent to the capital city of Asunción to receive formal education at the Colegio de los Padres de San José. While living there and under the tutelage of his maternal uncle Hermenegildo Roa, who later became bishop of Asunción, Roa Bastos read the universal classics—Homer, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes—and the principal French thinkers of the Enlightenment—Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseu, and Voltaire.
When he was fifteen years old, he joined the national army and participated in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia (1932-1935), a conflict which became a major subject of his novel Son of Man. When the war was finally won by Paraguay, Roa Bastos returned to civilian life to work as a bank employee. He began his literary career with a never published novel, Fulgencio Miranda, which received the Ateneo Paraguayo Prize in 1937. In the next decade he wrote El niño del rocío and Mientras llega el día, two unpublished plays that were presented by the Elenco del Ateneo Paraguayo in Asunción.
For years he was a contributor and a staff member of the Paraguayan newspaper El País. Thanks to a British Council Fellowship, Roa Bastos spent time in England studying journalism. This trip gave him the opportunity to witness the devastation suffered by Europe during World War II. He also visited the North of Africa, Germany, Sweden, and while in France he interviewed General Charles De Gaulle.
Back in his own country, he was appointed Paraguayan cultural attaché in Buenos Aires, but the civil war, which resulted in the long-lasting dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner, forced him to remain in exile beginning in 1947. His literary activity before this moment, which includes most of his poetic attempts and several lost pieces of writing, corresponds unquestionably to a period of apprenticeship. As Roa Bastos himself has recognized, the exile experience was very significant in helping him to develop a committed stance against political violence and Paraguay’s appalling historical record with regard to human rights. Roa Bastos attempted several times to visit his home country, and in 1982 he was accused of trying to promote civil disobedience among youths. As a result, authorities revoked his passport; only after the overthrow of General Stroessner did he recover his citizenship.
In 1959 his novel Son of Man won first prize in an international literary contest organized by Editorial Losada of Buenos Aires. Soon after, he was asked to prepare a screenplay from the novel, and the resulting film won its own prize from the Argentine Institute of Cinematography, thus allowing for a widespread recognition of this Paraguayan writer. In 1961 he was invited by the German Federation of Writers and the Ibero-American Institute of Berlin to participate in a seminar along with writers such as the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, the Colombian Germán Arciniegas, and the Guatemalan Miguel Ángel Asturias.
During the 1960’s Roa Bastos wrote scripts for the Argentine film industry and published several collections of his short stories, some of them including already published pieces and adding a few new ones.
After holding a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for creative writers in 1971, Roa Bastos reached the peak of fame with his 1974 novel I the Supreme. The novel, based on the life of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, dictator of Paraguay between 1814 and 1840, explores the complex relationships between fiction and history. Although Roa Bastos has been considered a modernist writer of the Boom generation, this novel has many characteristics attributed to postmodern narrative such as the use of parody, the carnivalization of historical discourse, and the questioning of the concept of narrative authority. These post-Boom concerns influenced the writing of the younger generation of Latin American novelists which includes Mempo Giardinelli, Isabel Allende, and Luisa Valenzuela.
After ten years of working as a professor of Guaraní and Latin American literature at the University of Toulouse in France, Roa Bastos retired in 1985. In 1989 he was awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the highest recognition that a Spanish-speaking writer can receive. Roa Bastos continued to write over the following years, authoring both novels and short stories.
On April 26, 2005, at the age of eighty-seven, Roa Bastos died of a heart attack. He was survived by his wife and three children.
Author Works
Long Fiction:
Hijo de hombre, 1960 (Son of Man, 1965)
Yo, el Supremo, 1974 (I the Supreme, 1986)
Vigilia del almirante, 1992
El fiscal, 1993
Contravida, 1994
Madama Sui, 1995
Short Fiction:
El trueno entre las hojas, 1953
El baldío, 1966
Madera quemada, 1967
Los pies sobre el agua, 1967
Moriencia, 1969
Cuerpo presente, y otros textos, 1972
Antología personal, 1980
Contar un cuento, y otros relatos, 1984
Cuentos completos, 2000
Screenplays:
Hijo de hombre, 1960 (adaptation of his novel); Shunko, 1961
Alias Gardelito, 1962
Castigo al traidor, 1966
Don segundo sombra, 1969 (adaptation of Ricardo Guiraldes’s novel)
Poetry:
El ruiseñor de la aurora, y otros poemas, 1942
El naranjal ardiente: Nocturno paraguayo, 1947-1949, 1960
Poesías reunidas, 1995
Nonfiction:
El tiranosaurio del Paraguay da sus últimas boqueadas, 1986
Carta abierta a mi pueblo, 1986
Children’s/Young Adult Literature:
El pollito de fuego, 1974
Carolina y Gaspar, 1979
Miscellaneous:
Metaforismos, 1998
Bibliography
Balderston, Daniel. “The Making of a Precursor: Carlyle in Yo el Supremo.” Symposium, vol. 44, 1990, 155-64.
Cuadernos hispanoamericanos, vol. 493/494, 1991.
Escritura, vol. 15, no. 30, 1990.
Foster, David William. Augusto Roa Bastos. Twayne, 1978.
Foster, David William. The Myth of Paraguay in the Fiction of Augusto Roa Bastos. U of North Carolina P, 1969.
Hoh, Anchi. "Writing in Exile, Working for Justice: 100 Years of Augusto Roa Bastos." Library of Congress Blogs, 25 Apr. 2017, blogs.loc.gov/international-collections/2017/04/writing-in-exile-working-for-justice-100-years-of-augusto-roa-bastos/. Accessed 21 June 2024.
Weldt-Basson, Helene Carol. Augusto Roa Bastos’s “I the Supreme”: A Dialogic Perspective. U of Missouri P, 1993.