Roberto Arlt
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Roberto Arlt (April 26, 1900 – July 26, 1942) was an Argentine novelist, storyteller, playwright, journalist and inventor.


Biography

He was born Roberto Godofredo Christophersen Arlt in
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
on April 26, 1900. His parents were both immigrants. His father, Karl Arlt, was from Posen (now
Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint Joh ...
in present-day Poland) and his mother was Ekatherine Lobstraibitzer, born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a native of
Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...
and Italian speaking. German was the language commonly used at their home. His relationship with his father was stressful, as Karl Arlt was a very severe and austere man, by Arlt's own account. The memory of his oppressive father would appear in several of his writings. For example, Remo Erdosain (a character at least partially based on Arlt's own life) often recalls his abusive father and how little if any support he would give him. After being expelled from school at the age of eight, Arlt became an autodidact and worked at all sorts of different odd jobs before landing a job at a local newspaper: a clerk at a bookstore, apprentice to a tinsmith, painter, mechanic, welder, manager in a brick factory, and dock worker. His first novel, ''El juguete rabioso'' (1926) (" Mad Toy"), was the semi-autobiographical story of Silvio, a dropout who goes through a series of adventures trying to be "somebody." Narrated by Silvio's older self, the novel reflects the energy and chaos of the early 20th century in Buenos Aires. The narrator's literary and sometimes poetic language contrasts sharply with the street-level slang of Mad Toy's many colorful characters. Arlt's second novel, the popular ''
Los siete locos ''The Seven Madmen'' ( es, Los siete locos, also known as ''The Revolution of the Seven Madmen'') is a 1973 Argentine drama film directed by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson and starring Alfredo Alcón, Norma Aleandro and Héctor Alterio. It was based on ...
'' (''The Seven Madmen'') was rough, brutal, colloquial, and surreal, a complete break from the polite, middle-class literature more typical of Argentine literature. ''
Los lanzallamas ''Los lanzallamas'' (English: ''The Flamethrowers'') is a book by the Argentine writer Roberto Arlt. The book is written in Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Sp ...
'' (''The Flame-Throwers'') was the sequel, and these two novels together are thought by many to be his greatest work. What followed were a series of short stories and plays in which Arlt pursued his vision of bizarre, half-mad, alienated characters pursuing insane quests in a landscape of urban chaos. In 1932 he published ''
El amor brujo ''El amor brujo'' (, "The sorcerer love") is a ballet by Manuel de Falla to a libretto by María de la O Lejárraga García, although for years it was attributed to her husband Gregorio Martínez Sierra. It exists in three versions as well as a p ...
''. During his lifetime, however, Arlt was best known for his "Aguafuertes" ("Etchings"), the result of his contributions as a columnist - between 1928 and 1942 - to the
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
daily " El Mundo". Arlt used these columns to comment, in his characteristically forthright and unpretentious style, on the peculiarities, hypocrisies, strangeness, and beauty of everyday life in Argentina's capital. These articles included occasional exposés of public institutions, such as the juvenile justice system ("Escuela primaria de delincuencia", 26–29 September 1932) or the Public Health System. Some of the "Aguafuertes" were collected in two volumes under the titles ''Secretos femeninos. Aguafuertes inéditas'' and ''Tratado de delincuencia. Aguafuertes inéditas'' which were edited by Sergio Olguín and published by Ediciones 12 and Página/12 in 1996. Between March and May 1930, Arlt wrote a series of "Aguafuertes" as a correspondent to "El Mundo" in Rio de Janeiro. In 1935 he spent nearly a year writing as he traveled throughout Spain and North Africa, on the eve of the Spanish Civil War. At the time of his death, Arlt was hoping to be sent to the United States as a correspondent. Worn out and exhausted after a lifetime of hardships, he died from a stroke on July 26, 1942. His coffin was lowered from his apartment by an operated crane, an ironic end, considering his bizarre stories. Arlt has been massively influential on Latin American literature, including the 1960s "Boom" generation of writers such as Gabriel García Márquez. "Let's say, modestly, that Arlt is Jesus Christ," propounded
Roberto Bolaño Roberto Bolaño Ávalos (; 28 April 1953 – 15 July 2003) was a Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. In 1999, Bolaño won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel ''Los detectives salvajes'' ('' The Savage Detectives ...
. Analogues in English literature are those who avoid literary 'respectability' by writing about the poor, the criminal and the mad: writers like
William Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
,
Iceberg Slim Robert Beck (born Robert Lee Maupin or Robert Moppins Jr.; August 4, 1918 – April 30, 1992), better known as Iceberg Slim, was a former American pimp who later became a writer. Beck's novels were adapted into films. Early life Robert Ma ...
, and
Irvine Welsh Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer. His 1993 novel '' Trainspotting'' was made into a film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, and directed several short fil ...
. Arlt, however, predated all of them. He is widely considered to be one of the founders of the modern Argentine novel; among those contemporary writers who claim to have been influenced by Arlt are
Abelardo Castillo Abelardo Castillo (March 27, 1935 – May 2, 2017) was an Argentine writer, novelist, essayist, diarist, born in the city of San Pedro, Buenos Aires. He practised amateur boxing in his youth. He also directed the literary magazines ''El Escarab ...
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Ricardo Piglia Ricardo Piglia (November 24, 1941 in Adrogué, Argentina – January 6, 2017 in Buenos Aires) was an Argentine author, critic, and scholar best known for introducing hard-boiled fiction to the Argentine public. Biography Born in Adrogué, Pigli ...
and
César Aira César Aira ( Argentine Spanish: ; born 23 February 1949 in Coronel Pringles, Buenos Aires Province) is an Argentinian writer and translator, and an exponent of contemporary Argentinian literature. Aira has published over a hundred short book ...
. At least two Argentine movies were based on his novels, ''Los siete locos'' (1974) and ''El juguete rabioso'' (1985). Peter Damian Bellis, an editor of the independent press River Boat Books of Minneapolis, became resolved to make ''Los siete locos'' and ''Los lanzallamas'' available together in English translation. Although a plan to publish the two closely linked novels in the same volume initially proved unfeasible, ''The Seven Madmen'' and ''The Flamethrowers'', respectively translated by Naomi Lindstrom and Larry Riley, appeared simultaneously in July 2018. River Boat's combined edition of both novels eventually appeared in January 2022 under the title ''Madmen in Revolt.''


Novels

* El diario de un morfinómano (1920) ''(Diary of a Morphimaniac)'' - (lost) * El juguete rabioso (1926) ''(Mad Toy)'' * Los siete locos (1929) ''(Seven Madmen)'' * Los lanzallamas (1931) ''(The Flame-Throwers)'' * El amor brujo (1932) ''(Bewitching Love)''


Plays

* El humillado (1930) * 30000 millones (1932) * Prueba de amor (1932) * Escenas de un grotesco (1934) * Saverio el Cruel (1936) * El fabricante de fantasmas (1936) * La isla desierta (1937) * Separación feroz (1938) * África (1938) * La fiesta del hierro (1940) * El desierto entra a la ciudad (1952) (posthumous) * La cabeza separada de mi tronco padreeeee (1964) (posthumous) * El amor brujo (1971) (posthumous)


Short story collections

* El jorobadito (1933) ''(The Little Hunchback)'' * El criador de gorilas (1941) ''(The Gorilla Handler)''


Journalism

* Aguafuertes porteñas (1933) ''(Etchings from Buenos Aires)'' * Aguafuertes españolas (1936) ''(Etchings from Spain)'' * Nuevas aguafuertes españolas (1960) ''(New Etchings from Spain)'' * Secretos femeninos. Aguafuertes inéditas (1996) ''(Female Secrets. Unpublished Etchings)'' * Tratado de delincuencia. Aguafuertes inéditas (1996) ''(Treatise on Delinquency. Unpublished Etchings)''


Sources


References

* * *


Further reading

Aynesworth, Michele Mckay
''Mad Toy'', a translation of Roberto Arlt's ''El juguete rabioso'', with Introduction and Notes. Duke UP, 2002.
Biography of Roberto Arlt
at
Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes The Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library (MCVL; in es, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, BVMC) is a large-scale digital library project, hosted and maintained by the University of Alicante in Alicante, Spain. It comprises the largest open-ac ...


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Arlt, Roberto Argentine dramatists and playwrights Argentine male short story writers Argentine male novelists Argentine essayists Writers from Buenos Aires Argentine people of German descent 1900 births 1942 deaths 20th-century Argentine novelists 20th-century dramatists and playwrights Male dramatists and playwrights Male essayists 20th-century short story writers 20th-century essayists 20th-century Argentine male writers Argentine journalists Male journalists Weird fiction writers