 Although it is difficult to establish the exact origin of the dictator novel in the nineteenth century , its intellectual influence spans Latin American Literature . Most of the novels were written in the middle years of the twentieth century , and each has a unique literary style that employed techniques of the “ new novel ” , by which the writer rejected the formal structure of conventional literary realism , arguing that “ its simplistic assumption that reality is easily observable ” is a narrative flaw . As a genre , the dictator novel redefined the literary concept of “ the novel ” in order to compel the readers to examine the ways in which political and social mores affect their daily lives . Therefore , the regional politics and the social issues of the stories yielded to universal human concerns , thus the traditional novel ’ s “ ordered world view gives way to a fragmented , distorted or fantastic narrative ” in which the reader has an intellectually active role in grasping the thematic gist of the story . Additional to the narrative substance , the novelists redefined the formal literary categories of author , narrator , character , plot , story , and reader , in order to examine the etymological link between “ author ” and “ authority ” , wherein the figure of the novelist ( the author ) became very important to the telling of the tale . In the dictator novels , the writers questioned the traditional story @-@ teller role of the novelist as the “ privileged , paternal figure , as the authoritative ‘ father ’ , or divine creator , in whom meaning would be seen to originate ” , and so , the novelists fulfilled the role of the dictator . 
