I the Supreme - by Augusto Roa Bastos (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><i>I the Supreme</i> imagines a dialogue between the nineteenth-century Paraguayan dictator known as Dr. Francia and Policarpo Patiño, his secretary and only companion. The opening pages present a sign that they had found nailed to the wall of a cathedral, purportedly written by Dr. Francia himself and ordering the execution of all of his servants upon his death. This sign is quickly revealed to be a forgery, which takes leader and secretary into a larger discussion about the nature of truth: "In the light of what Your Eminence says, even the truth appears to be a lie." <p/> Their conversation broadens into an epic journey of the mind, stretching across the colonial history of their nation, filled with surrealist imagery, labyrinthine turns, and footnotes supplied by a mysterious "compiler." A towering achievement from a foundational author of modern Latin American literature, <i> I the Supreme </i>is a darkly comic, deeply moving meditation on power and its abuse--and on the role of language in making and unmaking whole worlds.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"A richly textured, brilliant book. . . . One of the milestones of the Latin American novel." --Carlos Fuentes, <i>The New York Times Book Review</i> <p/>"A work of graceful, voluminous genius, an Everest of fiction. . . . Augusto Roa Bastos is himself a supreme find, maybe the most complex and brilliant Latin American novelist of all." --<i>The Washington Post</i> <p/>"A text of a verbal density that recalls the later James Joyce. . . . Roa Bastos's novel has challenged and fascinated thousands of readers around the world." --<i>Los Angeles Times</i> <p/> "The most magnificent work, most magnificently translated, to come from Spanish into English in almost a quarter of a century." --<i>Commonweal</i> <p/>"These passages reverberate with a fierce surrealism--peopled with dwarves, women warriors and clairvoyant animals; studded with Borgesian images. . . A prodigious meditation not only on history and power, but also on the nature of language itself." --<i>The New York Times<br></i><br> "An elaborate and erudite opus saturated in the verbal bravura of classic modernism." --John Updike, <i>The New Yorker<br></i><br> "[<i>I the Supreme</i>'s] breadth of vision and ambition make it important in any language." --<i>The New Statesman<br></i><br> "The novel's true achievement is one of tone and voice. The language is a triumph almost as much for the translator as for the author: ebulliently resourceful, brilliant in its vitriol and vituperation, rabelaisian in its extravagance." --<i>Publishers Weekly</i><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Augusto Roa Bastos was born in 1917 and is widely considered to be one of Paraguay's greatest novelists. Best known for his novels <i>I the Supreme</i> and <i>Son of Man</i>, he authored many works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and Spain's Cervantes Prize, Roa Bastos spent much of his life outside Paraguay, both as a foreign correspondent and in exile for his opposition to the ruling governments of his country. He died in 2005.
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