ARLT, Roberto. Los siete locos. Buenos Aires: Editorial Latina, 1929. Octavo, 334pp. First edition of Arlt's masterpiece, one of the defining works of modern Latin American literature. The grimly hilarious tale of a bill collector, who -- having been dismissed by his employer -- falls in with a twisted assortment of revolutionaries: an astrologer, a eunuch, a prostitute, a pimp and the pimp's murderous slave. While it would be possible to liken the work in its portrayal of an unwitting, unassuming Everyman entrapped in the inexorable logic of madness to the great novels of Kafka, the Russian satirists or the Existentialists of the next two decades, the book is an Argentine original. It was not until the magic realists recognized Arlt as an idiosycnratic precursor that the present work became an acknowledged masterpiece. As a character in Ricardo Piglia's largely conversational novel of ideas, Artificial Respiration, remarks, "any primary school teacher, even my Aunt Margarita, could correct a page of his (i.e., Arlt's) Spanish, but no one could write it." An extremely rare book. This is only the second copy we have encountered in twenty years, and far the preferable one. Very good in publisher's magnificently illustrated wrappers, with some minor restoration to spine. In addition to its distinction as a copy in original condition, the present example is inscribed by Arlt: ""A Roberto Mariani, Para que trabajes con fe; con esperanza, con alegria. Roberto Arlt, 30 de Octubre, Buenos Aires." Roberto Mariani was a proletarian realist writer, famously responsible for asserting the distinction between the putative rival Buenos Aires literary camps of the Boedo group (of which he was a member) and the Florida group. Although Arlt was associated with the Boedo group, his literary motives clearly transcend any mere political intention. It was primarily because of his personal origins that Mariani attempted to enlist him in the Boedo cause, in spite of the fact that he had been the secretary of Ricardo Guiraldes, the patrician novelist and publisher of Proa.

The Magnificent Arlt -- inscribed, in wrappers

• Category: Extraordinary Books, Manuscripts & Art
• Keywords: argentine · Inscribed · LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE · political novels · SIGNED · spanish
• Language: Deutsch
• Inventory number: 7070LB

Our Price: USD 15,000.00