Dictator novels and the Latin American Boom genre

Throughout the 20th Century, the 'Dictator novel' has been extremely influential in the development of Latin American literary tradition. Many authors rejected traditional story-telling techniques and developed an unusual style. This blurred the distinctions between reader, narrator, plot, characters and the story itself. In addition to examining the authority of leadership, the authors assessed their own role as paternalistic dispensers of wisdom, seeing it as akin to the dictatorships they were challenging.

Latin American countries have often been subject to both right and left-wing authoritarian regimes. These have resulted from a history of colonialism in which one group dominated another. It is therefore unsurprising that there have been so many novels about individual dictators and about the problems of dictatorships. Racial conflict sometimes produces a figure of absolute authority who rises up to quash or contain the racial tension.

Often this authority figure becomes a dictator. Seeking unlimited power, the individual amends constitutions and dismantles laws which would normally prevent reelection. General Manuel Estrada Cabrera, for example, altered the Guatemalan Constitution in 1899 to permit his return to power.

Agosto Pinochet in Chile-

The dictators who have become the focus of the dictator novel (Augusto Roa Bastos's "I, the Supreme', for instance, is based on Paraguay's dictator of the early nineteenth century, the so-called Dr Francia) do not differ much from each other in terms of how they govern. Their tactics include exiling or imprisoning their opposition, attacking the freedom of the press, creating a centralized government backed by a powerful military force and assuming control over free thought. Despite intense criticism levelled at these figures, dictators involved in nationalist movements developed three simple truths. These were a) that everybody belonged b) that the benefits of progress should be shared and c) that industrial development should be the priority. Epitácio Pessoa, who was elected President of Brazil in 1919, wanted to make the country progress regardless of whether or not Congress passed the laws he proposed. In particular, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Latin American activist governments saw the end of neocolonialism and the infusion of nationalist movements throughout Latin America. This increased the success of import substitution industrialization (ISI).

The collapse of international trade meant local Latin American manufacturers could fill the market niches left vacant by vanishing exports. This made the countries less vulnerable to that which their leaders saw as ' 'foreign interference' since they perceived themselves as independent and self-sufficient.

In the twentieth century, prominent Latin American dictators included the Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua, Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay and Augusto Pinochet in Chile. United States interference in Latin American politics is controversial and has often been severely criticized. As García Calderon noted as far back as 1925: "Does it want peace or is it controlled by certain interests?" As a theme in the dictator novel, the link between U.S. imperialism and the power of the dictator is very important. Dictators in Latin America have accepted military and financial support from the United States but have then turned against them later, using anti-American campaigning to gain favour with the people.

'Yo el supremo' is a historical, fictionalized account of the nineteenth-century Paraguayan dictator 'Dr Francia'. The book's title derives from the fact that Francia referred to himself as "El Supremo" or "The Supreme." The first in a long line of dictators, the Supreme was a severe, calculating despot. The central themes of the novel are power, language and the relation between the two of them. The Supremo believes himself to be above all power and history: "I don't write history. I make it. I can remake it as I please, adjusting, stressing, enriching its meaning and truth." Yet this assertion is constantly challenged by the very fact that while he achieves power by means of writing and dictating, these very same methods can be used by others to dispute his authority. Not even his own identity, represented by the personal pronoun I, is safe and can easily be usurped as is demonstrated by the incident of the pasquinade (parody). Language, as powerful as it is, can never be controlled and can be used both as an instrument of coercion or as an instrument of resistance.

Alfredo Stoessner in Paraguay

During the time the book was written, Paraguay was under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, who went on to rule the country even longer than 'Dr Francia' did. Many consider the book to be at least in part a thinly disguised attack on Stroessner who used methods similar to Francia's to achieve and maintain the effective control of the country, including the swift elimination of opposition, the employment of torture and intolerance of dissent.

The writers of the dictator novel genre combined narrative strategies of both modern and postmodern writing. Postmodern techniques, (constructed largely in the late 1960s and 1970s), included use of interior monologues, stream of consciousness, fragmentation, varying narrative points of view, neologisms, innovative narrative strategies and frequent lack of causality.

Alejo Carpentier, a Boom writer and contributor to the dictator novel genre pioneered what is referred to as magical realism. However, the use of this technique is not necessarily a prerequisite of the dictator novel, as there are many that do not use magical realism.

A predominant theme of the dictator novel is obviously power, which according to literary critic Michael Valdez Moses, in his 2002 review of 'Feast of the Goat', is linked to the theme of dictatorship. "The enduring power of the Latin American dictator novel had everything to do with the enduring power of Latin American dictators". As novels like 'El Señor Presidente' became more well-known, they were read as ambitious political statements, denouncing the authority of dictators in Latin America.

As political statements, dictator novel authors challenged dictatorial power, creating a link between power and writing through the force wielded by their pen. The novel 'I, The Supreme', revolves around a central theme of language and the power inherent in all of its forms, a power that is often only present in the deconstruction of communication. González Echevarría argued that: " Dr. Francia's constant worry about writing all stem from the fact that he has found and used the power implicit in language itself.

The Supremo defines power as being able to do through others what we are unable to do ourselves: language, being separate from what it designates, is the very embodiment of power, for things act and mean through it without ceasing to be themselves. Dr. Francia also realizes that he cannot control language, (particularly written language), that it has a life of its own that threatens him".

Another constant theme which runs throughout the Latin American dictator novel, is the interdependence of the Latin American dictator and United States imperialism.

In Mario Vargas Llosa's 'The Feast of the Goat', for example, Trujillo faces serious opposition shortly after losing his material backing from the CIA, previously held for over 32 years in lieu of his anti-communist leanings.

Gender is an additional overarching theme within dictator novels. National portraits in Latin America often insist on the importance of men and women that are healthy, happy, productive, and patriotic.

I The Supreme

Yet many national literary treasures reflect government rhetoric in the way they code active citizenship as male. Masculinity is an enduring motif in the dictator novel. There is a connection between the pen and masculine power in Latin American fiction, but this pattern cannot be explained by machismo alone, since it is far more complex.

Where we find violent, misogynistic fantasies of masculinity, we also see violent social relations between actual men and women. Many Latin American works include characters who act out violent masculinity, yet their narrative structure provides readers with alternative responses to misogynistic fantasies of masculine identity formation.

While it is difficult to exactly pinpoint the origin of the dictator novel, its influence spans Latin American literature. Written largely in the middle of the twentieth century, these novels followed a unique style, employing many of the techniques of the "new" novel. As previously discussed in this series of columns, the "new novel" rejected the formal structure of conventional realism. Regional issues gave way to universal ones and an ordered world view gave way to a fragmented, distorted or fantastic narrative in which the reader no longer took a passive role.

The role of the author was examined as the etymological link between "author" and "authority" was established, and the figure of the author became highly important. The authors themselves then questioned the traditional role of the author as a "privileged, paternal figure, as the authoritative 'divine creator' in whom meaning would be seen to originate" and who seemed to fulfil the role of dictator.

These authors defined the novel in a new nontraditional way and forced readers to examine the way in which social and political matters affect their daily lives. In addition to examining the authority of leadership, the authors assessed their own role as paternalistic dispensers of wisdom, seeing it as akin to the dictatorships they were challenging. This was undoubtedly a principle factor behind the new narrative style that we have been studying.