Yo, el Supremo

Synopsis of Yo, el Supremo

I, the Supreme is a novel by Paraguayan writer Augusto Roa Bastos, published in 1974. The work is a novelization of the life and government of Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who ruled the country with an iron fist between 1814 and 1840. The novel focuses on the Supreme's obsession with instituting the discourse of power as the only possible one, and reflects on the nature of power and dictatorship.