Roberto Arlt (1900-1942), celebrated in Argentina for his tragicomic, punch-in-the-jaw writing during the 1920s and 1930s, was a forerunner of Latin American "boom" and "postboom" novelists such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende. This title presents a set against the chaotic background of Buenos Aires in the early twentieth century.
"Arlt's influence on figures like Borges, Cortazar, Onetti, and Piglia is substantial--and equally so are his literary reverberations today, when his grim, sordid view of life seems to speak louder than ever before."--Ilan Stavans, editor of "Mutual Impressions: Writers from the Americas Reading One Another"
