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I, the Supreme

Author	Augusto Roa Bastos
Original title	'Yo el supremo'
Translator	Helen Lane
Language	Spanish
Genre	Historical novel, Dictator novel
Publication date	1974
Publication place	Paraguay
Published in English	1986
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	1-56478-247-6

I, the Supreme (orig. Spanish Yo el supremo) is a historical novel written by exiled Paraguayan author Augusto Roa Bastos. It 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 central themes of the novel are power and language and the relation between the two. The Supreme believes himself to be above all power and history: "I don't write history. I make it. I can remake it as I please, adjusting, stressing, enriching its meaning and truth." yet this assertion is constantly challenged by the very fact that while he achieves power by means of writing and dictating, these very same methods can be used by others to dispute his authority. Not even his own identity, represented by the personal pronoun I, is safe and can easily be usurped as is demonstrated by the incident of the pasquinade. Language, as powerful as it is, can never be controlled and can just as easily be used as an instrument of coercion as an instrument of resistance.

During the time the book was written, Paraguay was under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, who went on to rule the country even longer than Francia did. Many consider the book to be at least in part a thinly disguised attack on Stroessner who used methods similar to Francia’s to achieve and maintain the effective control of the country, including the swift elimination of opposition, the employment of torture and intolerance of dissent. In its portrayal of Francia and criticism of Stroessner, I, the Supreme 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. The book was first published in Spanish in 1974, and in English (translation by Helen Lane) in 1986.

Like many other works of the Latin American boom, the book never became and international best-seller. It was, however, highly regarded by critics with Gerald Martin claiming that it was, "an exceptional cultural phenomenon." Martin goes on to suggest that it was "more immediately and unanimously acclaimed than any novel since One Hundred Years of Solitude, [and its] strictly historical importance [may] be even greater than that of García Márquez's fabulously successful creation." The book's handling of the themes of power and language was also praised. Still, the novel was not well received by Stroessner’s government and Roa Bastos become "one of the three citizens forbidden to return" to Paraguay as a result.

Historical context

After declaring independence from colonial Spain in 1811, land-locked Paraguay established itself as the First Republic of the South. Dr. Francia was elected by the junta (or congress) to office and he established himself as dictator for life, until his death in 1840. He ruled with a despotic populism in which the ideals he had drawn from the philosophers of the French Enlightenment were tempered by his aristocratic insistence on absolute rule. As John T. Deiner explains, he "created an army in which all citizens were required to serve. He confiscated property from the upper classes and used the state's coercive power to direct the working of that land by the army." He also isolated the country from the outside world, restricting foreign trade and mobility. Political opposition was not tolerated.

Francia's rule was the beginning of a long line of dictators, including Carlos Antonio López (who was president of Paraguay with dictatorial powers from 1844 to 1862) and López's son, Francisco Solano López (who ruled between 1862 and 1870). It was Solano López who unwisely initiated the War of the Triple Alliance (1865–79), which crippled Paraguay, reduced its population by half, and forced many others into exile, creating a Paraguay that Roa Bastos described as "the land without men of the men without land."

In the twentieth-century, Paraguay was dominated by the dictatorial figure of Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled the country for forty-five years (from 1954 to 1989) and was in power at the time at which Roa Bastos was writing I, the Supreme. Roa Bastos's novel can be perceived as in part a thinly disguised attack on Stroessner, who ruled Paraguay even longer than Francia. He came to power after the 1947 Civil War, which had destroyed all parties of the centre and the left and drove more than a third of Paraguay's population into exile. He assumed presidency after a series of coups in 1954. He gained complete control of the military, eliminated potential rivals, and closely monitored and participated in allocations of national resources. As Deiner argues, "The novel’s El Supremo (Francia) and Stroessner in the twentieth century used similar methods for dominating national politics. Neither tolerated effective opposition. Both rulers were extremely suspicious of any potential opponents, quickly acting to imprison and torture anyone suspected. Both were ruthless in their intolerance of dissent." As Rowe and Whitfield describe Stroessner's rule, "he inherited all Francia's despotism, but none of his populism [. . .] he rule[d] over a country where human and civil rights are honored only in their breach."