On Heroes and Tombs (Spanish: Sobre héroes y tumbas) is a novel by Argentine writer Ernesto Sabato (1911–2011), first published in Buenos Aires in 1961 and translated by Helen R. Lane in 1981.
He meets and falls in love with Alejandra Vidal Olmos, who with her father Fernando represents the "old", post-colonial and autochthonous Argentina, which is seen mutating amid a strange and unsettling "new" world.
This work, filled with dark and emotional imagery, is considered by many to be Sabato's magnum opus, and the section Informe sobre ciegos ("Report on the Blind"), about Fernando's distorted obsession with, and fear of, the blind, is a haunting, nightmarish contribution to Latin American literature.
Interspersed with the text of the novel, as an almost surrealistic running commentary on it, is the italicised narrative of the flight, killing and ensuing odyssey of Juan Lavalle, a classic Argentine subject.
Swedish melodic death metal band At the Gates' album At War with Reality has lyrics based on this book.