Roberto Arlt (1900–1942) was an Argentine novelist, playwright, journalist, and inventor whose work profoundly shaped 20th-century Latin American literature. Born in Buenos Aires to a family of German and Italian immigrants, Arlt grew up in a working-class environment that would later inform much of his writing. He left school at a young age and took on a variety of jobs—mechanic’s apprentice, salesman, journalist—that exposed him to the struggles and contradictions of urban life, themes that became central to his literary vision.