The Supreme, as an eternal dictator, wants the only voice heard in his country to be his own, and for all his subjects to follow the path he has set, because he is certain that this is their destiny. But what will happen when he wakes up one day and finds a leaflet posted on the door of the cathedral, written in the form of a decree issued by the dictator himself, instructing the people to hang his head after his death on a pike in the public square, and calling for the killing of all his aides? Will the Almighty succeed in finding out who wrote this post and punishing him?
In this novel, Augusto Roa Bastos gives free rein to the character of José Gaspar de Francia, who ruled Paraguay with an iron fist for nearly three decades, to narrate and dictate, ask and answer, tell stories and incidents, and judge situations and people, in a frenetic narration and a genius, competent construction. This novel is among the 100 most prominent works of literature written in Spanish.
The village has always been a symbol of simplicity in its system of life and in the psychological makeup of the villagers, who rarely suffer from what is called “phobia” or “mania,” and accept everything that happens to them as normal, no matter how harsh.
This was in those eras when crops fed those who worked the land and provided them with a surplus for sale that provided them with an important part of their living expenses. However, after agriculture became a loss-making business, and sometimes a heavy burden on the farmer that did not provide its owner with the minimum necessities of life, the village mixed with the city due to the migration caused by various crises, which generated sharp paradoxes that were nullified by that person who was imposed on him in the city a new way of life. At the same time, his customs, traditions, and connections to the village remained strong, which created a duality in him that made him a rich and diverse personality. This friction that occurred through migrations, as well as due to the great technological development that occurred, also transferred part of the city with its relationships and way of life to the village, which constituted a shock to a part of the villagers whose thinking remained based on the old pattern of rural relations.
All of this constituted, and continues to constitute, an important source of literature and drama. In this book there are a number of stories whose events take place in the village of Umm al-Tanafas, a name taken to be a symbol of the village in all works that touch upon the village. This will be the first village notebook and will be followed in the future by other notebooks, because the village’s stories are inexhaustible.
Electrolytes and resources:
It is a variety of study subjects in the school of life. It has no time or place, no chapter or book.
It is available to every person, and every day it contains more than one exam, and its materials have not been subjected to planning or preparation, and it has no curriculum.
It comes and goes, disappears and settles, changes and is renewed... This is how its materials are as I experienced them.
Resources are study materials imposed by life experience and written by life experience, and life remains the mother of schools.