Cuentos completos

by Augusto Roa Bastos

Por su valor literario, los cuentos de Augusto Roa Bastos son considerados, dentro de la narrativa iberoamericana contemporánea, verdaderas cumbres del género. Su estilo está marcado por un realismo crudo. Las permanentes persecuciones políticas -que a Roa Bastos le valieron el exilio- la marginalidad y la delación son temas casi recurrentes de estos relatos, cinco de ellos publicados por primera vez en este volumen. Un libro fundamental para entender la literatura hispanoamericana reciente.

Genres: Latin American Literature

592 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Augusto José Antonio Roa Bastos was a noted Paraguayan novelist and short story writer, and one of the most important Latin American writers of the 20th century. As a teenager he fought in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, and he later worked as a journalist, screenwriter and professor. He is best known for his complex novel Yo el Supremo (I, the Supreme) and for his reception of the Premio Miguel de Cervantes in 1989, Spanish literature's most prestigious prize. Yo el Supremo is one of the foremost Latin American novels to tackle the topic of the dictator. It explores the dictations and inner thoughts of Dr. José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who ruled Paraguay with an iron fist and no little eccentricity from 1814 until his death in 1840.

Roa Bastos' life and writing were marked by experience with dictatorial military regimes. In 1947 he was forced into exile in Argentina, and in 1976 he fled Buenos Aires for France in similar political circumstances. Most of Roa Bastos' work was written in exile, but this did not deter him from fiercely tackling Paraguayan social and historical issues in his work. Writing in a Spanish that was at times heavily augmented by Guaraní words (the major Paraguayan indigenous language), Roa Bastos incorporated Paraguayan myths and symbols into a Baroque style known as magic realism. He is considered a late-comer to the Latin American Boom literary movement. Roa Bastos' personal canon includes the novels Hijo de hombre (1960; Son of Man) and El fiscal (1993; The Prosecutor), as well as numerous other novels, short stories, poems, and screenplays.

Roa Bastos was an exponent of the Neobaroque style that brought Latin American literature to the fore internationally in the mid-20th century. Among others, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is also associated with this school of writing. The style uses a complex system of metaphors that are often very closely tied to the land, flora and culture of the particular writer, especially in the case of Roa Bastos. Magic realism is a Neobaroque concept that applies such systems of metaphor to otherwise realistic settings (Yo, el Supremo being a notable example of the form). The Neobaroque style was used by many Paraguayan writers in exile after 1947 and until the 1980s. At the core of much of the work from this group are ideas of political freedom and the emancipation of their homeland.[33]

Roa Bastos started out writing poetry in the Spanish Renaissance and Baroque traditions. Later he took on "a new sensibility" in response to the poetry of Valle-Inclán, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and García Lorca. However, it is as a prose-fiction writer Roa Bastos has built his considerable reputation, through his novels and numerous short stories. Roa Bastos' novels blend the present and past by creating scenes with myths from pre-colonial times and Christian legends, developing a special kind of Magic Realism, although there are significant stylistic variations between his major novels.

Reviews

[Nahed.E]

هناك بعض الأعمال التي تستشعر معها طعم المرارة الشديدة، فتراها خليطا بين الديستوبيا، وأدب السجون، خاصة لو كانت نوفيلا لها نكهة التعب والدموع والظلم والعذاب

هذه المجموعة القصصية ضمن هذا النوع، نوفيلا بنكهة مريرة للغاية

القراءة الأولي ل أجوستو باسطوس، أتمني أن اجد له روايات أخري بنكهة مختلفة

[Beruthiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

asombroso
una obra (o muchos obritas) maestra
incluso mas interesante en el conjunto

[عواض العصيمي · Rating 4 out of 5]

حكى حكايات عديدة. ربما كانت، كالعادة، حكاية وحيدة متفرقة عبر أحداث متناقضة، ممزقة طبقة إثر طبقة وباعثة مذاقها اللاذع الفانتازي. بعد الإشارة إلى الواقع الذي لا يمكن سبر غوره وإلى أسد ليونارد دافنشي المليء بالسوسنات، بدأ يحكي لنا حكاية الرجل الذي حلم بموته. حكاها دفعة واحدة، دون مزيد من الوقفات أو الاستطرادات. رأى الرجل في أحلامه المكان الذي سيموت فيه. في البداية لم يدرك تماماً أين كان. لكن البدين، على خلاف عادته، صرح أخيراً بمكنون قلبه في وصف مستفيض. حكى أن الرجل عاش بعدها يرتجف فرقاً من أن يصادف في الواقع المكان المقدر المحتوم. قص حلمه لعدد من الأصدقاء. فأجمعوا على أنه لا يجب أن يولي الأحلام أهمية. ذهب إلى محلل نفسي لم يصنع سوى أن زاد رعبه. وانتهى به الأمر إلى أن يحبس نفسه في مسكنه. وذات ليلة تذكر بغتة مكان الحلم. كان هو نفس حجرة مسكنه.