Seven madmen get author’s seal of approval in magical Argentina

IMAGINE Dostoevsky and Flann O’Brien had an adventure and you got to hear about it second-hand from Haruki Murakami. That is what it is like to read Roberto Arlt’s 1929 novel Los Siete Locos — or, as it is presented here, The Seven Madmen — a rollicking and prescient dive through the anxieties of an urban Argentina on the cusp of transformation.

The Seven Madmen

Roberto Arlt