Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles on twentieth-century literature. In this essay, Aubrey discusses the key images in the novel, examines the political context in which they appear, and offers some thoughts about the relevance of the story to the contemporary political world.

Bridal's The Tree of Red Stars is a novel of almost infinite delicacy that also possesses the force of a sudden, hard punch in the stomach. Its poetic richness includes a few key images—especially the tree and the river—that encapsulate the essence of the novel, while the plot gives much food for thought about the phenomenon of terrorism and the relations between Latin America and the United States.

It is the images that remain indelibly imprinted in the mind long after the reader has finished the novel. The most prominent is that of the...