I, the Almighty
I, the Almighty (Original title: Yo, el Supremo ) is a historical novel published in 1974 by the Paraguayan novelist Augusto Roa Bastos (1917-2005). Together with The Autumn of the Patriarch ( Spanish El otoño del patriarca ), a novel by the Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez from 1975, it is one of the most important dictatorial novels in Latin America .
history
The author sat in his title character of Paraguay's first dictator Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia (1766-1840) (picture) , inspiring from 1814 until his death for 26 years autocratically and mercilessly ruled in the 19th century the country. This emotionally cold person, who referred to himself as "El Supremo" and also as "Eternal Dictator", had Paraguay from 1811, at the time when the Napoleonic Wars were raging on the Iberian Peninsula , together with Fulgencio Yegros (1780-1821) the Spanish domination freed. Following the example of the French Revolution , both became consuls of the Republic of Paraguay , before Rodríguez de Francia asserted himself as president and absolute sovereign for life in 1814 . His political vision of making inland Paraguay the centerpiece of all of South America and freeing it from Spanish, Argentine and Brazilian influences remained an illusion and brought nothing but tyranny and misery for his own people.
Web links
- Augusto Roa Bastos: I the Almighty. Suhrkamp , 2000, ISBN 978-3-518-41138-4
- Cult of Violence - A great novel from Latin America. Review in ZEIT , accessed on January 18, 2017.
- Comment on Literaturschock.de , accessed on January 18, 2017.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cult of Violence - A Great Novel from Latin America at ZEIT Online, accessed on January 18, 2017
- ↑ Commentary from Literaturschock.de, accessed on January 18, 2017