Augusto Roa Bastos

Augusto Roa Bastos was a Paraguayan novelist and short story writer. As a teenager he fought in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, and he later worked as a journalist, screenwriter and professor. He is best known for his complex novel Yo el Supremo and for winning the Premio Miguel de Cervantes in 1989, Spanish literature's most prestigious prize. Yo el Supremo explores the dictations and inner thoughts of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the eccentric dictator of Paraguay who ruled with an iron fist, from 1814 until his death in 1840.