I the Supreme

Zusatztext “A richly textured! brilliant book. . . . One of the milestones of the Latin American novel.” —Carlos Fuentes! The New York Times Book Review “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.” — The Washington Post “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.” — Los Angeles Times   “The most magnificent work! most magnificently translated! to come from Spanish into English in almost a quarter of a century.” — Commonweal “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.” — The New York Times “An elaborate and erudite opus saturated in the verbal bravura of classic modernism.” —John Updike! The New Yorker “[ I the Supreme ’s] breadth of vision and ambition make it important in any language.” — The New Statesman “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.” — Publishers Weekly Informationen zum Autor Augusto Roa Bastos Klappentext I the Supreme 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." 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 the Supreme is a darkly comic, deeply moving meditation on power and its abuse-and on the role of language in making and unmaking whole worlds. Zusammenfassung I the Supreme  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.” 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 the Supreme  is a darkly comic! deeply moving meditation on power and its abuse—and on the role of language in making and unmaking whole worlds. ...

Product details

• Authors: Augusto Roa Bastos, Augustos Roa Resfr Bastos
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.03.2019
• EAN: 9780525564690
• ISBN: 978-0-525-56469-0
• No. of pages: 448
• Dimensions: 156 mm x 232 mm x 26 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature