The Island of Missing Trees

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022 THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER & REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK ***** You don't fall in love in Cyprus in the summer of 1974. Not here, not now. In 1974, two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided Cyprus, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek, and Defne who is Turkish, can meet in secret, hidden beneath the leaves of a fig tree growing through the roof of the tavern. This tree will witness their hushed happy meetings, and will be there when the war breaks out and the teenagers vanish. Decades later in north London, sixteen-year-old Ada has never visited the island where her parents were born. She seeks to untangle years of her family's silence, but the only connection she has to the land of her ancestors Is a fig tree growing tin the garden of their home . . . ***** 'This book moved me to tears . . . in the best way. Powerful and poignant' Reese Witherspoon 'A brilliant novel -- one that rings with Shafak's characteristic compassion' Robert Macfarlane 'This is an enchanting, compassionate and wise novel and storytelling at its most sublime' Polly Samson I know it will move many readers around the world, as it moved me' Robert Macfarlane 'A wonderfully transporting and magical novel that is, at the same time, revelatory about recent history and the natural world and quietly profound' William Boyd 'This is an enchanting, compassionate and wise novel and storytelling at its most sublime' Polly Samson 'A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES is balm for our bruised times' David Mitchell **'**An outstanding work of breathtaking beauty' Lemn Sissay 'A writer of important, beautiful, painful, truthful novels' Marian Keyes **'****Lovely heartbreaker of a novel centered on dark secrets of civil wars & evils of extremism: Cyprus, star-crossed lovers, killed beloveds, damaged kids. Uprootings. (One narrator is a fig tree!)' Margaret Atwood on Twitter 'Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature' Ian McEwan**