-- An amalgam of facts and fictions, dialogues and soliloquies, rants and declamations, I the Supreme details the history and mythology of Paraguay's first dictator, Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, self-professed Dictator for Life.-- From 1947-1989 Roa Bastos lived in forced exile from Paraguay and was, during the rule of General Alfredo Stroessner, one of three citizens forbidden to return. He wrote I the Supreme while living in Argentina, moved later to France, and returned, in 1989, to Paraguay, at the request of the new government.-- The author has been named a Fellow of British Council, and awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the Concurso Internacional de Narrativa from Editorial Loada, and the Premio Cervantes de Literatura.-- Helen Lane's translation has been called "a miraculous feat of lexical magnificence", "wizardly" and "almost as much a triumph for the translator as the author". She has translated, among others, Octavio Paz, Juan Goytisolo, Juan Carlos Onetti, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Manuel Puig.-- First U.S. edition by Knopf ('86), most recent paperback by Vintage/Aventura ('87).