Remo Erdosain sleepwalks through the days. The failed inventor stands, like so much in this 1929 novel, on the edge of the abyss: he has embezzled money, prison awaits, and in his delusions, he sees a cloud of poison over the city. Erdosain drifts through the masses and alleys of Buenos Aires, through brothels and coffeehouses, encountering the shabby and the insane—until he falls into the hands of a group of self-proclaimed conspirators: a melancholic pimp, an apocalyptic pharmacist, a prostitute, a gold digger. Under the leadership of the "astrologer," the madmen plan nothing less than a revolution. But for the great upheaval, a small murder is needed first. "The Seven Madmen" is a modern classic of Latin American literature, belonging in the same league as the monumental urban novels of Dos Passos and Döblin. In Arlt's arms.