 Literary critic Roberto González Echevarría argues that the dictator novel is “ the most clearly indigenous thematic tradition in Latin American literature ” , and traces the development of this theme from “ as far back as Bernal Díaz del Castillo ’ s and Francisco López de Gómara ’ s accounts of Cortés ’ s conquest of Mexico . ” The nineteenth century saw significant literary reflections on political power , though on the whole the dictator novel is associated with the Latin American Boom , a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s . For critic Gerald Martin , the dictator novel marks the end of the Boom and even ( as he says of Roa Bastos 's I , the Supreme ) “ the end of an entire era in Latin American history , the era which had stretched from Sarmiento 's Facundo in 1845 . " In the 1970s , many dictator novels focused on the figure “ of the aging dictator , prey to the boredom of a limitless power he is on the verge of losing . ” 
