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.

After Kevin Barry’s win last year, could Dónal Ryan land the IMPAC prize for Ireland again? Orlagh Ní Arrachtáin looks at the contenders.

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