Augusto Roa Bastos

Augsto Roa Bastos
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	Paraguayan
Genre	Latin American Boom, Dictator Novel
Notable works	Hijo de hombre I, the Supreme
Notable awards	Miguel de Cervantes Prize 1989

Augusto Roa Bastos, (June 13 1917 – April 26 2005) was a noted Paraguayan novelist, and was one of the most important Latin American writers of the 20th century. As a teenager he fought in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia and later worked as a journalist, screenwriter and professor. He is best known for his novel Yo el Supremo (I, the Supreme) for which he won the Premio Cervantes, Spanish literature's most prestigious prize. Yo el Supremo is one of the foremost Latin American novels to tackle the topic of the dictator. It explores the dictations and inner thoughts of Dr. José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who ruled Paraguay with an iron fist and no little eccentricity for 26 years in the early 19th century. Roa Bastos' personal canon includes Hijo de Hombre ("Son of Man") and numerous other novels, short stories, screen plays and collected writings, the majority of which were written in exile.

Biography

Chronology

• 1925? - Sent to Asunción to attend military school.

• 1932-1935 - Chaco War in which he enlists as a medical auxillary.

• 1942 - El ruiseñor de la aurora, a book of poems, is published (actually written in 1936).

• 1944-1945 - Covers WWII for Asunción daily El País in England, France and Africa.

• 1947 - Flees to exile in Buenos Aires following the Paraguayan civil war and seizure of power by Alfredo Stroessner.

• 1959 - Hijo de hombre (1960; Son of Man) wins Concurso International de Novelas de la Editorial Losada, which publishes it in 1960.

• 1960 - His adaptation of Hijo de hombre wins first prize at the Argentine Instituto de Cinmatografia.

• 1966 - Adapts for film Miguel Ángel Asturias's novel El señor presidente.

• 1970 - Returns to Paraguay to teach courses in Latin American literature (maintains his residence in France).

• 1974 - Yo, el Supremo (1974; I, the Supreme) published, his most famous work.

• 1976 - Military coup in Argentina forces him into exile in France.

• 1982 - Exiled from Paraguay for a second time.

• 1986 - English translation of Yo, el Supremo published.

• 1989 - Fall of Alfredo Stroessner and return of Roa Bastos to Paraugay.

• 1989 - Wins Premio Cervantes (Cervantes Prize), Spanish language's top literary prize.

• 2005, April 26 - Dies in Asunción.

Early life: 1917-1932

Roa Bastos was born in Asunción on June 13 1917. He spent his childhood in Iturbe, a provincial town in which his father was an administrator on a sugar plantation.. It was here, some 200 kilometres (120 mi) to the south of the Paraguayan capital of Asunción, that Roa Bastos learned to speak both Spanish and Guaraní, the language of Paraguay's indigenous people. At the age of 8 he was sent to a military school in Asunción where he stayed with his uncle, the bishop of Asunción. His early exposure to Guaraní social customs and language combined with the traditional Spanish education that he would receive in Asunción, created a cultural and linguistic duality that would manifest itself in many of Roa Bastos' writings. His rural upbringing also provided Roa Bastos with exposure to the exploitation and oppression of the indigenous and peasant peoples of Paraguay, which would become a prominent theme in his writings.

War and Writing: 1932 to 1947

In 1932 the Chaco War began between Paraguay and Bolivia. At some point, perhaps as late as 1934, Bastos joined the Paraguayan army as a medical auxiliary. Directly after the war Roa Bastos' occupation was first as a bank clerk and later as journalist, and it was at this time that he began writing theater and poetry. As the first of many accolades to come, Roa Bastos won the Ateneo Paraguayo prize in 1941 for his book Fulgencia Miranda, although the book was never published. In the early 1940s Roa Bastos spent much time in the mate tea plantations of the north, an experience that he would later draw upon in his first published novel, Hijo de hombre (Son of Man). In 1942 Roa Bastos was named an editorial secretary for the Asunción daily El País.

In 1944 Roa Bastos was awarded a nine month fellowship to study journalism in London by the British Council. During this time he was able to travel extensively in Britain, France and Africa and see the devastation of the war first hand. He served as the El País war correspondent, the highlight of which was an interview with General Charles de Gaulle after the latter's return to Paris in 1945. Roa Bastos was somehow able to find time to do Latin American programming on both French and English radio during this time, at the invitation of the BBC and France's Ministry of Information.

During this eventful period in his life Roa Bastos continued his literary exploits. In 1942 he published a book of poems in the classic Spanish style, which he titledEl Ruiseínor De La Aurora (The Dawn Nightingale). Roa Bastos would later renounce this work. His plays that were successfully performed during the 1940s were never published. Of his prolific poetry of the late 1940s only El naranjal ardiente (1960; “The Burning Orange Grove”) was published.

Argentina: 1947-1976

In February of 1947 the Paraguayan civil war broke out Alfredo Stroessner seized power in Paraguay. Roa Bastos was forced to flee to Buenos Aires, Argentina, because he had spoke out against Stroessner and his ally President Higinio Morínigo during the Paraguayan Civil War. With Roa Bastos to Argentina went close to 500,000 of his fellow Paraguayans. . He would remain in Argentina until just before the arrival of the military dictatorship in 1976 and would not return permanently to Paraguay until 1989. While Roa Bastos had difficulty accepting his exile, his time in Buenos Aires was a prolific period.

In 1953 his collection of short stories ''El trueno entre las hojas (1953; Thunder Among the Leaves) was published, but it was not until the 1960 publication of the novel Hijo de hombre (Son of Man) that Roa Bastos received extensive critical and popular success. This work draws on the oppressive history of Paraguay from the rule of Dr. Jose Gaspar de Francia in the early 1800s until the Chaco War. The historical theme and the multiple narrative perspectives used throughout this novel would be used extensively in his most famous work Yo, el Supremo more than a decade later. Roa Bastos adapted Hijo de hombre into an award winning film in the same year as its publication and wrote many scripts throughout the 1960s. In 1974 he published his influential work Yo, el Supremo, which was the labour of the previous seven years. However, with the arrival of Jorge Rafael Videla's military dictatorship in 1976 this book was banned in Argentina, and he was exiled for the second time in his life, this time to Toulouse, France.

France: 1976-1989

In Toulouse Roa Bastos taught Guaraní and Spanish literature at the University of Toulouse II. Although he had been allowed to visit Paraguay to work with a new generation of Paraguayan writers starting in 1970, he was once again barred from entry in 1982 for purportedly engaging in subversive activities. Roa Bastos did not return to his native Paraguay until 1989, following the downfall of Alfredo Stroessner for whom he professed detestation.

A Return to Paraguay and the Cervantes Prize: 1989-2006

Following the the toppling of the Stroessner regime, Roa Bastos won the Premio Cervantes (Cervantes Prize), awarded by the Spanish Royal Academy and its correspondent academies in the various American nations, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the Spanish-language novel; he spent the prize money on educational and literary projects in Paraguay. It was at this time that Roa Bastos began to frequently travel between Paraguay and France. He continued writing throughout the 1990s and died on April 26, 2005 in Asunción from a heart attack. He was survived by his three children and his third wife, Iris Giménez.

Major works

Hijo de hombre

Hijo de hombre portrays the struggle between the governing élite and the oppressed in Paraguay from the 1860s until the beginning of the Chaco War in 1932..

Yo, el Supremo

Main article: Yo, el Supremo

Yo, el Supremo (I, the Supreme) is a fictionalized account of the nineteenth-century Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who was also known as "Dr. Francia." The book's title derives from the fact that Francia referred to himself as "El Supremo" or "the Supreme." The first in a long line of dictators, The Supreme was a severe, calculating despot. The novel itself is "an exceptional cultural phenomenon." Critics have suggested that is "[is] more immediately and unanimously acclaimed than any novel since One Hundred Years of Solitude, [and the] strictly historical importance [may] be even greater than that of García Márquez's fabulously successful creation." It belongs to the genre of novelas de dictadores or dictator novels, and also to the Latin American Boom, a literary movement of the 1960's and 1970's.

In Yo, el supremo, Roa Bastos is also fundamentally concerned with the power (and the weakness) of writing itself: its plot revolves around the dictator's efforts to uncover who has been forging his signature on a series of pasquinades discovered around the capital, and also his relationship with his secretary, to whom he dictates his thoughts and orders, but whom he never feels he can fully trust.

Precursors and Influences

Ruy Díaz de Guzmán's Anales del descubrimiento, población y conquista del Río de la Plata, is considered one of the most important antecedents to Roa Bastos' writings. Guzmán, a Paraguayan explorer of Guaraní and Spanish heritage, wrote extensively in this work about the geography of Paragay using using mythical descriptions of the landscape and the Guaraní language. The most important precursor to Roa Bastos, however, is Rafael Barrett, whose writings incorporated many of the important themes and writings styles that Roa Bastos would later master incuding: Spanish-Guaraní bilinguilism, magic realism, the revision of Paraguayan history, social literature, exploration of collective memory and the universe of poetic symbols.

Style

Juan Manuel Marcos describes how Roa Bastos' writing is part of a neobaroque style that was used by many Paraguayan writers in exile during the 1970s and 1980s. While Roa Bastos started out writing poetry like many Latin American writers, it is as a prose-fiction writer he has built his considerable reputation.

Roa Bastos's novels blend the present and past by creating scenes with myths from precolonial times and Christian legends, developing a special kind of magic realism which allows him to create a poetic image of an oppressed people whose potential has been tragically wasted.

The Significance of Bilingualism

As is customary for most Paraguayans of peasant or working origins, Roa Bastos learned to speak Spanish and Guaraní from brith. Both Spanish and Guaraní are the official languages of Paraguay, but the latter is primarily an oral language. For this reason Guaraní remains the "popular" language spoken broadly, but Spanish remains the language of official business.

While Roa Bastos's writing is primarily in Spanish, the interplay between these two languages is an essential part of Roa Bastos' writing. His bilingualism gives Roa Bastos a much greater range of language to work with, but also leaves a tension between an internationally recognized language and one that is obscure and fiercely Paraguayan.. Roa Bastos has described the relationship between the two languages as an almost schizoprhenic split not only on communicational levels of the spoken language, but also and quite particularly in the literary language."

Honors and Distinctions

Over the course of his career, Roa Bastos received many awards and prizes. These range from the 1941 Ateneo Paraguayo Prize for his (unpublished) novel Fulgencio Miranda to the British Council fellowship that enabled him to travel to Europe. He won awards for his novel Hijo de hombre, and indeed also for the subsequent screenplay. But his most prestigious distinctions include the 1971 award of a John Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for creative writers, and then, in 1989, the Cervantes Prize, an award given by the Spanish government to the most important writers in the Spanish language. Roa Bastos donated most of his prize money to provide easier access to books in Paraguay. And finally, Roa Bastos also received some belated recognition in Paraguay itself, as in 1990 he won the country's Condecoración de la Orden Nacional del Mérito.

Legacy

Roa Bastos is easily the most important author to come out of Paraguay and remains highly influential for a new generation of Paraguayan authors. His influence can also be found in the works of a host of foreign post-boom writers including: Mempo Giardinelli, Isabel Allende, Eraclia Zepeda, Antonio Skármeta, Saul Ibargoyen, and Luisa Valenzuela. According to Juan Manuel Marcos, Yo, el Supremo "anticipates many of the post-boom writing techniques" such as "the carnivalization of historical discourse, transtextualization, and parody".

Published Works

Novels

• Hijo de hombre (1960; Son of Man)
• Yo, el Supremo (1974; I, the Supreme)
• Vigilia del admirante (1992; Vigil of the Admiral)
• El fiscal (1993; The Prosecutor)
• Contravida (1994; Counterlife)

Short Fiction

• El trueno entre las hojas (1953; Thunder Among the Leaves)
• El baldío (1966; Vacant Ground)
• Madera quemada (1967; Burnt Wood)
• Los pies sobre el agua (1967; The Feet on the Water)
• Moriencia (1969; The Experience of Dying)
• Cuerpo presente y ostros textes (1971; Lying in State)
• El pollito de fuego (1974)
• Los Congresos (1974)
• El somnámbulo (1976)
• Lucha hasta el alba (1979)
• Los Juegos (1979; The Games)
• Contar un cuento, y otros relatos (1984; To Tell a Tale and Other Stories)
• Madama Sui (1996)
• Metaforismos (1996)
• La tierra sin mal (1998; Land Without Evil)

Poetry

• El ruiseñor de la aurora, y otros poemas (1942; The Dawn Nightingale, and other poems) *Written in 1936
• El naranjal ardiente (1960; The Burning Orange Grove) *Written between 1947 and 1949

Compilations and Anthologies

• Antología personal (1980; Personal Anthology)

References

• Bach, Caleb (November 1, 1996), "Augusto Roa Bastos: Outwitting Reality", Americas, retrieved March 27, 2008 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

• Caistor, Nick (April 28, 2005), "Obituary: Augusto Roa Bastos", The Guardian, retrieved ?? {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

• Fuentes, Carlos (April 6, 1986), "A Despot, Now and Forever. Review of I, the Supreme", New York Times, retrieved 2008-03-27 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link).

• Foster, David William (1978), Augusto Roa Bastos, Boston: Twayne Publishers, ISBN 0-8057-6348-1.

• Hoyt Williams, John (1979), The Rise and Fall of the Paraguayan Republic, Austin: University of Texas Press, ISBN ?? {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help).

• King, John (1983), "Profile: Augusto Roa Bastos", Index on Censorship, 12 (4): 15–17, doi:10.1080/03064228308533562 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

• Lewis, Tracy K; Mendez-Faith, Theresa (1997), Augusto Roa Bastos, London: Fitzroy Dearborn, ISBN I-884964-18-4 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help).

• Marcos, Juan Manuel (1989), "Augusto Roa Bastos", in Solé, Carlos; Abreu, María Isabel (eds.), Latin American Writers, vol. 3, New York: Scribner, pp. 1209–1213, ISBN 9780684184630.

• Martin, Gerald (1989), Journeys through the Labyrinth: Latin American Fiction in the Twentieth Century, London: Verso, ISBN ?? {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help).