The fictional dictator in Augusto Roa Bastos’s I, the Supreme is Dr. Francia.
The character is based on José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the historical Paraguayan ruler who was also known as Dr. Francia and El Supremo. Roa Bastos’s 1974 novel is not a straightforward biography; it blends historical material, invented documents, dictation, commentary, and competing voices to question how political power controls official memory.
Francia ruled Paraguay with dictatorial authority from the early years of the republic until his death in 1840. In the novel, he dictates much of his version of events to his secretary, Policarpo Patiño, while a fictional compiler’s notes repeatedly challenge the ruler’s claims. This structure makes the boundary between fact, myth, and propaganda deliberately unstable.
The title reflects Francia’s own use of the designation “the Supreme.” Readers may confuse him with Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay’s twentieth-century dictator, because the novel was written during Stroessner’s regime and is often read as an indirect critique of it. Stroessner is historical context, not the dictator who serves as the novel’s central fictionalized character.