SOURCE: "Fuentes's New/Old World Mirror," in Christian Science Monitor, April 20, 1994, p. 17.

In the following review, Rubin offers synopses of the novellas collected in The Orange Tree.

In the midst of his long literary career, Carlos Fuentes, Mexico's most famous living writer, also served as his country's ambassador to France from 1975 to 1977. The author of Terra Nostra, Distant Relations, The Death of Artemio Cruz, and much more, Fuentes has pondered the urgent questions of social justice and the underlying complexities of the interrelationships among different cultures.

The Orange Tree, his latest work, consists of five novellas, artfully arranged to serve as distant mirrors of one another. Each has its own distinct historical setting. Each involves a moment when two cultures meet, clash, or embrace. Beginning with The Two Shores, Fuentes examines the convergence of the Old World and the New—here, seen through the eyes of Jeronimo de...