The Mad Toy

Biographical note

The son of immigrant parents from Germany and Italy, Roberto Arlt was born in Buenos Aires on 2 April 1900.

Following a startlingly brief and difficult school education, Arlt tried to turn his hand to many different careers (from mechanic and painter to dockworker and member of the armed forces) before lighting on journalism. The fruits of his columns were his ‘Aguafuertes’ (Etchings) in which he documented everyday life in Buenos Aires and for which he is still best remembered and celebrated.

In 1926, Arlt published his first novel El juguete rabioso (The Mad Toy). He would go on to write a number of other novels as well as short stories and plays. In 1935, Arlt travelled through Spain and Africa as a correspondent, hoping that it would lead to a career as a North-American correspondent.

Arlt died in July 1942 following a stroke.

James Womack was born in Cambridge in 1979. He studied Russian and English Literature at university, and has lived in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Reykjavík. In 2008 he moved to Madrid with his wife, the Spanish writer Marian Womack, where they run Nevsky Prospects, a publishing house producing Spanish translations of Russian literature. He has published translations from Russian and Spanish. His first book of poems, Misprint, was published in 2012.