The Island Of Missing Trees (shortlisted For The Women’s Prize For Fiction 2022)

By (author) Shafak Elif
Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN''S PRIZE 2022
A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2021

A rich, magical novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - now a top ten Sunday Times bestseller

It is 1974 on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic, chilli peppers and wild herbs. This is where one can find the best food in town, the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to the place: it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world outside and its immoderate sorrows.

In the centre of the tavern, growing through a cavity in the roof, is a fig tree. This tree will witness their hushed, happy meetings, their silent, surreptitious departures; and the tree will be there when the war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to rubble, when the teenagers vanish and break apart.

Decades later in north London, sixteen-year-old Ada Kazantzakis has never visited the island where her parents were born. Desperate for answers, she seeks to untangle years of secrets, separation and silence. The only connection she has to the land of her ancestors is a Ficus Carica growing in the back garden of their home.

The Island of Missing Trees is a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature, and, finally, renewal.

''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

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An outstanding work of breathtaking beauty
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A writer of important, beautiful, painful, truthful novels
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Lovely heartbreaker of a novel centered on dark secrets of civil wars & evils of extremism: Cyprus, star-crossed lovers, killed beloveds, damaged kids
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Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature
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One of the best writers in the world today
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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
Biographical note
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist whose work has been translated into 55 languages. The author of 19 books, 12 of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak''s latest novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and RSL Ondaatje Prize; longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award; and chosen as Blackwell''s Book of the Year. Her previous novel, The Forty Rules of Love was chosen by the BBC as one of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. In 2021, Shafak''s The Architect''s Apprentice was chosen for the Duchess of Cornwall''s inaugural book club, The Reading Room. Find out more about Elif Shafak on her website: www.elifshafak.com.