Augusto Roa Bastos

Augusto Roa Bastos (1917–2005) was a Paraguayan novelist, short-story writer and poet, widely regarded as Paraguay's most important writer of the 20th century. As a teenager he served in the Chaco War before working as a journalist and screenwriter.

Opposition to the Stroessner dictatorship drove him into exile for more than four decades, first in Argentina and later in France, where he taught Guaraní and Latin American literature.

His novels Hijo de Hombre (1960) and Yo el Supremo / I the Supreme (1974) are landmarks of the Latin American Boom, weaving Guaraní myth and language into the Spanish prose tradition. In 1989 he was awarded the Premio Cervantes, the most prestigious prize in Spanish-language letters.

He returned permanently to Paraguay in the 1990s and died in Asunción in 2005.