Roberto Arlt was an Argentine novelist, playwright, journalist, travel writer, and short-story writer. Recognized in recent decades as a foundational figure of modern literature in Argentina and Latin America, during his lifetime he was regarded as an outsider among writers. Arlt began to acquire a prominent status in Latin American literature in the 1960s, thanks to several young writers and critics who noted a significant precedent in his confrontational prose, as well as for his transgressive treatment of the power dynamics and cultural issues associated with the rise of modern urban societies.