Difficult years
Paraguayan literature finds its first traces in the particular context of colonization. On the left bank of the Río Paraguay, the encounter between the conquistadors and the Guaraní tribes gave rise to a mixed-race society. While plundering and proselytizing left their mark on the native populations, the Jesuits offered a parenthesis in their reductions, where the indigenous communities could preserve their identity. Peruvian priest Antonio Ruiz de Montoya fought for their protection. This distinguished linguist studied their language with fervor and composed various learning manuals for the missionaries. These were the first traces of "literature" in Paraguay.
It was not until the 19th century that an embryo of literary production emerged. But after independence in 1811, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia was installed dictator for life, and until his death in 1840, censorship was the rule, with the country living in virtual autarky. His successors, his nephew and, from 1862, his son Francisco Solano López, seemed to ease the pressure a little. In 1860, for example, Natalicio de María Talavera founded the magazine La Aurora with other students, but this brief flight of fancy was interrupted by the war of the Triple Alliance in 1865. Incorporated as a lieutenant, the young poet became a correspondent and sent his columns to the Telégrafo Nacional. While there, he also launched a satirical newspaper, Cabichu'i, to alleviate some of the soldiers' anguish. Illness claimed him in 1867, when he was not yet 30. The conflict, which ended three years later, left the country bloodless, with two-thirds of its population decimated. It was meticulously recounted by Juan Crisóstomo Centurión in his Memorias o reminiscencias históricas sobre la Guerra del Paraguay, a first text that would be followed by a multitude of others, as history never ceases to inspire letters.
A Promising Century
The early 20th century saw the emergence of the writings of the " Generación del 900 ", notably three authors who had the distinction of not being Paraguayan. Rafael Barrett (1876-1910) was born Spanish into a wealthy family. He had a strong temperament, and his excesses led him to leave everything behind and cross the Atlantic. The shock was such that this proud dandy became a convinced and militant anarchist. As much as his writings, it was his influence on future Paraguayan writers that Augusto Roa Bastos hailed. Another journalist, and Argentinian by birth, José Rodríguez Alcalá also exerted a strong influence on the intellectual milieu of the time, and his Ignacia: la hija de suburbio (1905) is considered one of the first Paraguayan novels. It deals with a young woman forced into prostitution, and as it stands is a veritable social critique. In the same year, his compatriot Martín de Goycoechea Menéndez published Guaraníes, Cuentos de los héroes y de las selvas guaranies , with its nationalist overtones.
In the 20s, the melodious voice of modernist poet Manuel Ortiz Guerrero began to make itself heard. Writing indiscriminately in Spanish and Guaraní, living on fresh water and the love of his partner, Guillermo Molinas Rolón, at a time when there were almost no real publishers, he nonetheless touched his compatriots with his poetry - Loca is the best-known - and his plays. Contaminated by leprosy in his teens, he hid in the dark to receive visitors at the end of his short life, which ended in 1933 in Brazilian exile, while Paraguay was once again embroiled in the Chaco war with Bolivia. But Manuel Ortiz Guerrero had had time to encourage Julio Correa Myzkowsky (1890-1953) to write, and the latter took up the torch of a Guaraní dramaturgy he spearheaded as author, actor and director. His poetry was not to be outdone, and in this great current of modernity that he inaugurated, he did not hesitate to unite social criticism and devastating humor.
We are at the dawn of the emblematic " Generación del 40 " to which Josefina Plá is intimately linked. Although born in the Canaries, she was repeatedly honored by her adopted country, which she discovered in 1927 and to which she devoted herself entirely until her death in 1999. Her abundant output - over 50 books - includes Le Prix des rêves (The Price of Dreams), published in 1934, which caused such a stir because its poetry was so unlike any other, as well as short stories such as La Main dans la terre (The Hand in the Earth ) (1963). A complete artist, she tried her hand at every style with the same relentlessness, and remained an important female and feminist voice, unfortunately unheard in French translations. Alongside her, in the literary circle known as Vy'a raity, the highly politicized Hérib Campos Cervera was forced into exile several times, most recently in 1947 during the civil war. Close to postmodernism, he began his career in magazines such as Juventud and Ideal. The only collection published during his lifetime was Ceniza redimida, while Hombre secreto was published posthumously. Elvio Romero, the youngest of the Generación del 40, who was only 21 in 1947, was also a highly committed communist activist, destined for a life far from home. His poetry, to which he had devoted himself passionately from an early age, was profoundly humanist, and was applauded by the greatest poets, from Pablo Neruda to José Saramago. When he was finally able to return to his native land, after the end of the Stroessner dictatorship, he was awarded the National Prize for Literature.
Following in the footsteps of his poetic art, which does not hesitate to assert itself, the novel takes a new turn. Hitherto offering a traditional, even fantasized vision of the country and its turpitudes, it is now becoming radical. A case in point is La Babosa(The Slug) by Gabriel Casaccia (1907-1980), published in 1952 and translated a few years later by Gallimard. The lucidity with which the author depicts the failings of Asunción's politicians is tinged with tenderness when he evokes the resigned peasants and prevailing poverty. Having tried his hand at naturalism(Le Hurlement, 1938) and the absurd(Le Puits, 1947), he continued to explore the realist vein with fervor when, in 1965, he wrote Los Exiliados, a sombre portrait of Paraguayan émigrés in Argentina, where he himself ended his life in 1980.
Augusto Roa Bastos' Yo el Supremo, republished in French in February 2020 by Editions Ypsilon under the title Moi, le Suprême, is just as pithy. The writer doesn't hesitate to slip into the shoes of Francia's founding father, and no less a dictator, in a novel that completes his credentials. Born to a working-class father who didn't even have the chance to finish his schooling - he became a nurse during the Chaco war well before the age of 18 - he began his career in journalism. Exiled to Buenos Aires, in 1960 he published his first major work, Hijo de hombre(Son of a Man), a collection of tales in which his favourite themes of interbreeding, bilingualism, history and the struggle against dictatorship were already taking shape. His fame quickly spread beyond France's borders. Although he had to leave again, Argentina in turn experienced upheavals, and it was in Toulouse that he settled, becoming a university professor of literature and Guarani. He continued to write, with Veille de l'Amiral in 1992, and Le Procureur in 1993. Honored with the prestigious Cervantes Prize in 1989, this year also marked his return to Paraguay. His funeral in 2005 was marked by a three-day national mourning period. Rubén Bareiro Saguier (1930-2014), a man who practiced a thousand trades, from storyteller to lawyer, from literary critic to poet, also lived in France, the country of his exile, where we find him ambassador of Paraguay a few years later. Editions Patiño continues to publish his collection Poésie guarani, in a trilingual version. Finally, let us conclude this brief overview of Paraguayan literature with a note of hope, and salute the work of independent publisher La Dernière Goutte, which has brought out two works by Esteban Bodoya, born in Asunción in 1958, including the remarkable La Fosse aux ours, which promises many delights, preferably pagan.
