The Island of Missing Trees - Softcover

Shafak, Elif

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241988721 ISBN 13: 9780241988725

Publisher: Penguin, 2022

Synopsis

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


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About this title

About the Author

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist whose work has been translated into fifty-five languages. The author of nineteen books, twelve of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak's latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was a top ten Sunday Times bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women's Prize. Her previous novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize; longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award; and chosen as Blackwell's Book of the Year. She is a Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature. Shafak was awarded the Halldór Laxness International Literature Prize for her contribution to 'the renewal of the art of storytelling.'

From the Back Cover

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. The taverna is the only place that Kostas and Defne can meet in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic and chilli peppers, creeping honeysuckle, and in the centre, growing through a cavity in the roof, a fig tree. The fig tree witnesses their hushed, happy meetings; their silent, surreptitious departures. The fig tree is there, too, when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns - a botanist, looking for native species - looking, really, for Defne. The two lovers return to the taverna to take a clipping from the fig tree and smuggle it into their suitcase, bound for London. Years later, the fig tree in the garden is their daughter Ada's only knowledge of a home she has never visited, as she seeks to untangle years of secrets and silence, and find her place in the world.

The Island of Missing Trees is a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241988721
• ISBN 13: 9780241988725
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368