I the Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos (Translated by Helen Lane)
Author(s) from: Was born in Paraguay and lived there for about 30 years. Due to his opposition to the ruling governments of Paraguay, he went into exile in 1947 to Argentina and later to France.
Setting: Paraguay
Original Language: Spanish - I believe that in his writings he also used a lot of Guaraní words, which is the major Paraguayan indigenous language.
First Publised: 1974
Prizes: Augusto Roa Bastos won the Premio Miguel de Cervantes in 1989.
Description: 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. José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (Dr. Francia) was Paraguay's first "perpetual dictator" after it's independence from Spain and ruled from 1814 until his death in 1840 with an iron fist.
Other Books by the Author(s): Son of Man (1960) The Prosecutor (1993)

An Archipelago in a Landlocked Country by Elisa Taber
Author(s) from: Argentina and Canada
Setting: Paraguay
Original Language: English
First Publised: 2020
Description: An Archipelago in a Landlocked Country is the lyrical storytelling of fieldwork conducted in Neuland, a Mennonite colony in Paraguay's Boquerón department, and Cayim ô Clim, the neighboring Nivaklé settlement. The author was conceived in Neuland in 1990 and returned in 2013 and in 2016. This multi-sequentially read book shifts in genre from ekphrastic descriptions of 30-second films shot in Asunción, Filadelfia, and Neuland; to a short story collection inspired by metonymically translated Nivaklé myths; and finally, a novella that mythologizes the life of a third generation Mennonite woman. These three parts are not meant to be read in order. The hypertext gestures towards the omitted films and translations. This structure attunes readers to absent presences. The author's narratives render other kinds of realities--Nivaklé, Paraguayan, and Mennonite ways of being made over--and her own. This "unweaving" technique is inspired by Ñandutí--a spider web pattern created by unraveling threads from a piece of fabric.