Augusto Roa Bastos Papers

Augusto Roa Bastos (1917–2005) was a Paraguayan poet, writer, playwright, film scriptwriter, and influential literary figure in Latin America. Born in Asunción, Paraguay, to Lucio Roa Gómez and Lucía Bastos Filisbert, Roa Bastos spent his early childhood in the small town of Santa Clara—later renamed Iturbe—where his father worked as an administrator at a sugar mill. Roa Bastos grew up speaking Spanish and Guaraní, Paraguay’s two official languages, and, while he wrote in Spanish, Indigenous Guaraní words and phrases permeate his literary and poetic prose.

At the age of eight, Roa Bastos returned to the capital to attend San José, a prestigious private Catholic school. As a young man, he enlisted in the military to participate in the Chaco War against Bolivia where he was assigned to work as a medical auxiliary. After the war, he began writing for the periodical El País becoming increasingly involved in Paraguay’s literary and political circles. His journalistic criticism of the Higinio Morínigo dictatorship and outspoken support for democracy made him a target during the Paraguayan Civil War of 1947, forcing him into exile in Argentina. The Chaco War, the war of 1947, and exile profoundly shaped his writing.

From exile in Buenos Aires, Roa Bastos wrote his two most celebrated novels: Hijo de Hombre (1960), which won the Losada International Novel Competition Prize, and Yo el Supremo (1974) as well as several collections of stories and poems. Faced with increasing political repression after the 1976 Argentine coup, Roa Bastos accepted an offer to teach Latin American literature and the Guaraní language at the University of Toulouse in France. In 1990, following the fall of Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship, Roa Bastos returned to Paraguay where he was welcomed with open arms. In 1996, he settled in Asunción, where he lived until his passing in 2005.

Most widely known for his novels, Roa Bastos wrote expansively across and between genres. He authored short stories, poems, journalistic articles, essays, plays and film scripts, lyrics, and children's books. Due to his exiles in Argentina and later France, much of his archive was left behind, and the location of his early work, including his first unpublished novel, Fulgencio Miranda (1937), remains unknown. Roa Bastos’ literary achievements were widely recognized, earning him numerous awards, including the prestigious Miguel de Cervantes Prize in 1989.

Sources:

Augusto Roa Bastos Foundation: Fundación Augusto Roa Bastos - Perfil biográfico 1917-2005

Mascheroni, Mirta Roa. Augusto Roa Bastos: El Supremo Escritor. Asunción, Editorial Servilibro, 2018.