The series Authors in Search of a Reader, a collaboration between Instituto Cervantes and El Ojo de la Cultura Hispanoamericana, focuses this time on Augusto Roa Bastos in a dialogue between Hispanist John Kraniauskas and critic Juan Toledo.
Augusto Roa Bastos (Asunción, 1917 - 2005) was a Paraguayan writer, journalist and screenwriter. He is considered the most important author in his country and one of the most prominent in Latin American literature. He won the Cervantes Prize in 1989 and his works have been translated into twenty-five languages.
Produced for the most part in exile, the work of Roa Bastos is characterized by the portrait he makes of the harsh reality of the Paraguayan people, through the recovery of the history of his country and the vindication of his character as a bilingual nation (Paraguay also has the Guarani language as a official language); and the reflection on power in all its manifestations, central theme of his novel I, the Supreme (1974), considered his masterpiece and one of the best novels of the twentieth century in Spanish.
John Kraniauskas is Professor of Latin American Studies at the Birkbeck University of London, co-editor of the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, and has authored a number of publications about cultural, political and philosophical affairs in Latin America. His proofreading and translating of Carlos Monsiváis, Mexican Postcards won him a Special Mention at the LASA 98 Bryce Wood Book Prize. Recently, he has published Políticas literarias: politica y acumulacion en la cultura latino-americana (preface by Roger Bartra), FLACSO, Mexico, 2012.
Juan Toledo is a London-based Colombian teacher, critic and writer. He is currently Head of the cultural radio station ZTR Radio, part of the cultural project El Ojo de la Cultura Hispanoamericana.
This activity is a collaboration between the Instituto Cervantes in London, El Ojo de la Cultura Hispanoamericana, ZTR Radio and the Embassy of Paraguay.