If great means anything at all, then Arlt is surely a great writer ... he is Latin America's first truly urban novelist ... this is the power which inspired literature possesses
Guardian
The reader is possessed almost demonically by these characters ... an indestructible force of great literature
- Julio Cortázar,
Let's say, modestly, that Arlt is Jesus Christ. Argentina, of course, is Israel and Buenos Aires is Jerusalem ... Arlt is quick, a risk taker, adaptable, a born survivor ... Arlt is a Russian, a character from Dostoyevsky, while Borges is an Englishman, a character from Chesterton or Shaw or Stevenson ...without doubt an important part of Argentinian and Latin American literature
- Roberto Bolaño,
Arlt is, plain and simple, the father of the modern Argentinian novel ... he is the most important Argentinian novelist, the greatest
- Ricardo Piglia,
If ever anyone from these shores could be called a literary genius, his name was Roberto Arlt ... I am talking about a novelist who will be famous in time ... and who, unbelievably, is almost unknown in the world today
- Juan Carlos Onetti,