My Brother, My Executioner

The conflict in this novel about the Hukbalahap uprising the 1950s is not just the enmity in the guerilla war. It is the deeper symbolic conflict between two brothers and their vastly different and estranged worlds. Here, too, is the trauma of traditional society undergoing change, and the old refusing to let go. Don Vicente, the landlord who dominates Tree without appearing in it, appears in My Brother, My Executioner as the central figure, returning to his town to die. Luis is his illegitimate son on whom he pins his last hopes for an heir. Victor is Luis's half-brother - the rebel, unflinching but doomed.