Despre eroi și morminte

Despre eroi și morminte links private lives to Argentina’s past. Ernesto Sabato tells this tale through voices that shift. It has three strands. One follows the love between Martín and Alejandra. One views the nation’s past through its life today. The third deals with blindness and madness in Raport despre orbi.

The novel blends love, history, and dark inner worlds. Fernando Vidal stands at its core. His nightmare in the report uses symbols to show his life. For Sabato, dreams form part of the real world. They do not take us out of it. He seeks to show daily life and its hidden fears. He also holds that people need heroes, saints, and martyrs. The book asks how the present shapes our view of the past.

This is the middle book in Sabato’s three-part work. Tunelul comes first. Abaddón, exterminatorul comes last. This is the second edition. Tudora Șandru Mehedinți wrote the translation and notes.

Sabato was an Argentine writer, born in Rojas in 1911. His parents came from Italy. He studied physics and maths in La Plata. He earned his doctorate there in 1938. His research took him to Paris. There, Surrealism helped shape his views. He went back to Argentina in 1940. He taught in Buenos Aires. His attacks on Perón’s rule cost him his teaching post in 1945. He also left science to focus on writing. He wrote fiction and essays on society, politics, and thought. He won the Médicis and Cervantes prizes. The French state gave him honours too. As his sight failed, he turned to painting. He died in Santos Lugares in 2011, just before turning 100.