The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak | Goodreads

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak | Goodreads

The Island of Missing Trees

by
Elif Shafak (Goodreads Author)
4.21 · Rating details · 18,583 ratings · 2,433 reviews
A rich, magical new book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

Years later, a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited - her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet. (less)

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Hardcover, 368 pages
Published August 5th 2021 by Viking
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Ruthie The first chapter after the prologue says "England, late 2010s", not 2010. So you might assume the book is set in 2016. But I think it is interesting …more
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Feb 12, 2022jessica rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
oh, my heart. such a truly breathtakingly beautiful story. never would i have imagined falling in love with a fig tree; and yet, after reading this, it seems so unfortunate that i ever thought such a thing was impossible.

this story is dedicated ‘to immigrants and exiles everywhere, the uprooted, the re-rooted, the rootless, and to the trees we left behind, rooted in our memories.’ and i think that describes the soul of this book perfectly.

this is a personal ode to homelands and homes, those we leave behind and those we meet along the way, the nurturing of roots and the grafting of branches. its a story of war and hope, of loss and love, and of course the fig tree that was there throughout it all.

this is an absolute mastery of storytelling.

↠ 5 stars (less)
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Jul 17, 2021Paromjit rated it it was amazing
Shelves: family-drama, historical-fiction, netgalley, literary-fiction
Elif Shafak is a wondrous author, here she writes with imagination, originality, and lyricism, not to mention magical realism, of the people and natural environment of Cyprus. Set in different time periods, from the 1970s and up to more recent times, it is set in Cyprus and London. If you are unaware of the turbulent history of the island, then this novel provides a informative, human and compassionate account of its tragic, traumatising, troubling and turbulent past, of fractured communities torn apart by war, partition, division, religion, love, loss, grief, migration, the natural world, and the search for a sense of identity and belonging that refuses to be denied. There are families desperately seeking to locate their missing loved ones from the war, unable to find peace until they do.

There is narration from a fig tree, growing centrally through a tavern and winding its way through the roof, that observes the comings and goings of a young teenage couple, Romeo and Juliet if you will, that meet secretly there, they are Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot. The fig tree goes on to witness the devastation of war, the disappearances, the sorrow, and a symbolic cutting is taken to London. Ada is a London teenager struggling to hold it together, she is given a school assignment of interviewing an older family member, but her relatives are in Cyprus and she has never met them. However, this doesn't prevent her feeling an inner sense of a need to know, to fill in the missing pieces and roots of her identity, to be who she is and belong. Ada's parents and the people of Cyprus are not the only ones traumatised, so is the natural world.

Shafak writes of pain and heartbreak through the prism of hope, moving on, renewal and healing, of the need to tell the stories of the past, rather than burying them, addressing the issues that hurt, and extend our concern and eyes to the natural world, to recognise its central integral place, like the fig tree growing in the tavern, within humanity and connect with it in the way our ancestors would have done. This is extraordinary storytelling, with great characters, I particularly loved Aunt Meryem, with some parts structured around the different parts of a tree. I found it to be profound, powerful and moving, of human connection and disconnection, of love, family, and history, of people, nature and an island home. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC. (less)
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Feb 21, 2022Margaret M (Semi hiatus until October) rated it it was amazing
Shelves: best-historical-fiction, best-reads-2022
A wonderful book that reminds us that it is families who bear the terrible cost of war as everyone loses something !!!

“The cruelty of life rested not only in the injustices, injuries and atrocities, but also in the randomness of it all”

5 heartfelt and agonising stars for a moving story of love and antipathy, belonging and displacement, destruction and survival set in a country fractured by war over politics and religion. Yet the story of Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, and Defne, a Turkish Cypriot, is also a story that demonstrates the strength of the human spirit, the power of forgiveness, the resilience of nature and the determination of people who are left fighting for their survival, as their cities are reduced to ash and rubble.

Highly imaginative, passionate, evocative, and poignant. Not just for the dramatic history shared through the pages of this book but also as a reminder of senseless and despicable wars that scar our past and disfigure today’s world. The author does a great job in sharing the inevitability of war that leads to broken hearts, damaged lives and an earth scorched through warfare, as we are left wondering ‘Why?’. However, Elif also paints the story of healing as people rebuild their lives over the decades and when combined with the beauty and resilence of the natural world we are reminded that only the physical can be destroyed not the human spirit.

The Plot

‘The Island of Missing Trees’, is an intimate and compelling memoir told through the life and recollections of a fig tree which dominates the centre of the ‘Happy Fig’ taverna with its branches coming through the roof and resting near the tables of its patrons. Through the years the fig tree witnesses the love, the conversations, and the encounters of many people whose relationships are forbidden, because of religious intolerance, political opposition, and prohibited sexual partnerships.

As war breaks out in Cyprus, Kostas and Defne are separated with Kostas emigrating to the UK. However, as a botanist he returns to his beloved homeland in search of native Cyprus trees and his long-lost love. Ade, who also narrates the book, is a teenager with lineage going back to Cyprus. However, as she seeks to discover the history and ancestry of her family, Ade begins to understand the wreckage, the anguish and trauma caused by years of conflict. Even within her own family the ugly past and prevailing divisions are brought to the fore as many family secrets are revealed.

However, “just as hope can spring from the depths of despair, or peace germinate among the ruins of war, a tree could grow out of disease and decay” and so a story that does not shy away from the effects of war now paints a picture of healing, as the fig tree develops new roots.

Review and Comments

‘An island of Missing Trees’, is a book that draws on the traditions and folklore in Cyprus, as it weaves a rich tapestry of history to create a backdrop of war and a story of healing as people are forced to face injustices and loss but also find love and a new peace.

It goes without saying that this book is profoundly moving and incredibly touching not just because it reignites our memories of the atrocities, lives and loves lost in Cyprus many years ago but because of the injustices, destruction, and death in our world today.

Written with such elegant prose, deeply drawn characters, and vivid descriptions of the landscape and links to the natural world, this book will have you totally absorbed. An immersive read that will play with a range of emotions from heartache, anger, incomprehension, to forgiveness, compassion, and hope.

Highly recommended but this comes with a warning. Whilst a fabulous book, I found it heart-breaking to read and extremely difficult to review because of parallels in events from the past and present. All we have to do is look at our television screens to see why!!!

Special thoughts

In loving memory of those innocent lives lost in countries like Cyprus, Afghanistan and now Ukraine. High praise for all those willing to speak out, and those fighting against any form of prejudice, injustice, and the right to live the life THEY choose. In peace. Applause for the authors who continue to bring these stories to us because it is important we never forget the many innocent people slaughtered in the name of war or through so-called ‘special military operations’. My thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families who don’t and never sought war.

In the words of one of the greatest writers of all time - Shakespeare

“I doubt not then but innocence shall make false accusation blush, and tyranny tremble at patience”

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none” (less)
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Nov 15, 2021Angela M rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: edelweiss-reviews, 2021-favorites
This is an imaginative, multi-layered story with a dual time line narrative reflecting the history of the volatile time in Cyprus in the 1970’s between Greeks and Turks, the culture and religious differences, a civil war. I was moved by the efforts years later to find remains of those who were killed and missing.

It’s a love story in both the past on the island and years later in the 2010’s in London. It’s also about a teenage girl in the more recent time coping with loss and grief, loneliness and the meanness spread on social media, about the importance of connecting with her family’s past.

I loved the omniscient narrative sections of The Fig Tree, born in Cyprus, continuing her life through a cutting brought to London and now a tree again, who knows so much of history, of the natural world, of human nature. I loved the fable like feel of the telling. This was beautifully written and I hope to read more by Elif Shafak, a gifted storyteller.

A monthly read with Diane and Esil . Always an enjoyable discussion.

I received a copy of this book from Bloomsbury Publishing through Edelweiss. (less)
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Aug 07, 2021Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing
Shelves: netgalley
Elif Shafak is a great storyteller…..a very skillful writer. I’m a fan!

….I loved the ‘very’ start/introduction with an excerpt by William Shakespeare:
“To immigrants and exiles everywhere, the uprooted, the re-rooted, the rootless,
And to the trees we left behind, rooted in our memories….”
“Anyone who hasn’t been in the Chilean forest doesn’t know this planet. I have come out of that landscape, that mud, that silence, to roam, to go singing through the world”.
—Pablo Neruda, Memoirs
“It will have blood: They say blue head will have bled. Stones have been known to move and trees to speak…
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth

I also loved the beginning contextual quotes. (I felt it was a great way to set up readers. I was excited to dive into the main meal:

“Once upon a memory, at the far end of the Mediterranean Sea, there lay an island so beautiful and blue that the many travelers, pilgrims, crusaders and merchants who fell in love with it either wanted never to leave or try to tow it with hemp ropes all the way back to their own countries”.

“Legends, perhaps.
But legends are there to tell us what history has forgotten. It has been many years since I fled that place on board a plane, inside a suitcase made of soft black leather, never to return. I have since adopted another land, England, where I have grown and thrived, but not a single day passes that I do not yearn to be back. Home. Motherland”.

“The Mediterranean sea will collapse on itself and its secret will rise to the surface, as every secret is bound to do in the end”.

After the beautiful introduction we move into the first chapter.
…..We meet Ada Kazantzakis, sixteen years old at the start - in London. It’s the late 2010’s
She was sitting in class. The bells were about to ring for the Christmas holidays.
Everyone was concerned about a big storm coming that was expected to paralyze large swathes of England and Scotland and parts of northern Europe. People had been stockpiling, getting ready for the siege.
We learn that Ada’s father, Kostas, an evolutionary ecologist and botanist, had published twelve books — he wrote and spoke about the impact of deforestation with a passion.
Since the death of Ada’s mother -(a little less than a year ago) her father had retreated into research “like a burrowing animal hiding in its tunnel for safety and warmth”.
“No matter the time of day, her father seemed to prefer the company of trees to the company of humans”.
GREAT SET UP ….I was still very interested….

But something also felt ‘off’…..
… [note: for me this was the only boo-boo, I didn’t feel fit]..
Just before Ada’s teacher, Mrs. Walcott dismissed the class for the Christmas holiday break— she gave the students an assignment.
They were to interview an elderly relative during the holidays. The teacher told them to support their five page essay with historical facts. She didn’t want speculation.
Ada had never met her relatives but she knew that they lived on an island in The Mediterranean Sea-in Cyprus.
Her relatives and the island with both mysteries to Ada.
ALL GOOD…clear!….I was still excited to dive into this novel.
But…
…..then….
THIS happened ….(I found it disturbing and puzzling):
A boo boo: (in my opinion).
Ada imagined her teacher touching herself at night.
It didn’t feel fitting with ‘anything’. It was so surprising to me. I found ‘nothing’ that warranted this to be included in this story.
Plus, it was too fast and too soon to drop a sexual visual fantasy - about Ada’s teachers private life. I would have omitted it altogether.

We moved from the classroom to the next chapter called: “Fig Tree”….
I was at 9% of this story.
I ‘began’ to understand what was going on with the styling, crafting, and storytelling.
It’s bathed in lyrical magical realism.

The narrative switches back-and-forth from present day - 2010 to the past of 1974 when Ada’s parents - Kostas and Defne (Christian Greek and Turkish Muslim), were secretly dating, knowing their families would not approve of their relationship.
Kostas and Defne’s secret meeting place was in ‘The Happy Fig’ tavern in Cyprus. The tavern was a happening spot for
Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Maronites, and UN soldiers.

The eco consciousness of The Fig Tree was powerful: [The fig Tree is one of the narrators]….
Example of The Fig Tree’s voice:
“When you are buried, I’ll come and talk to you every day, Kostas said as he drove the spade into the ground. He bore down on the handle and lifted up the clod of soil, tossing it on to the growing mound beside him. You won’t feel lonely”.
“I wish I could have told him that loneliness is a human invention. Trees are never lonely. Humans think they know with certainty where their being ends and where someone else’s starts. With their roots tangled and caught up underground, linked to a fungi and bacteria, trees harbour no such illusion. For us, everything is interconnected”.

In the authors notes Elif wrote that many of the stories of the missing mentioned throughout the novel were based on real accounts. The story is fiction, but inspired by many real accounts. We learn about the fraught and unsettling history—(torn apart by war over religion divisions), the island became a matter of disagreement between two prominent ethnic communities: Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
“History has warned about the between humaninduced carbon emissions and rising temperatures”
Elif says….
“I also wanted to honour local folklore and oral traditions. But everything here is fiction
— a mixture of wonder, dreams, love, sorrow and imagination”.

It takes a little concentration and patience….to fully appreciate the magnitude of this novel. ….but it’s more than worth it.
Many sentences and paragraphs are not only beautifully written - but they are profoundly discerning and perceptive.

Elif Shafak gently exposes the depths of war, conflict, love, loss, trauma, migration, segregation, pain and suffering….connecting our human world with our root-plant world.

“Plants can pick up vibrations, and many flowers are shaped like balls so as to better trap sound waves, some of which are too high for the human ear. Trees are full of songs and we are not shy to seeing them”.


“I listen carefully, and I find it astounding that trees, just through their presence, become a saviour for the downtrodden and symbol of suffering for people on opposite sides”.
“Across history we have been a refuge to a great many. A sanctuary not only for mortal humans, but also for gods and goddesses. There is a reason why Gaia, the mother goddess earth, turned her son into a fig tree to save him from Jupiter’s thunderbolts. In various parts of the world, women thought to be cursed and married to a Ficus carica before they can pledge their troth to the one they truly love”.

“Ever since Kostas was a boy, trees had offered him solace,
a sanctuary of his own, and he had perceived life through the colors and density of their boughs and foliage. Yet his profound admiration for plants had also afflicted him with a strange sense of guilt, as if by paying this much attention to nature he was neglecting something if not more crucial then at least as urgent and compelling — human suffering. Much as he loved the arboreal world and it’s complex ecosystem, was he, in some roundabout way, avoiding the day-to-day realities of politics and conflict? A part of him understood that people, especially where he came from, might see it this way, but a bigger part of him seriously rejected the idea.
He had always believed there was no hierarchy — or there should be none — between human pain and animal pain, and no precedence of human rights over animal rights, or indeed of human rights over those of plants, for that matter. He knew many among his fellow countrymen I would be deeply offended if he voiced this out loud”.

There are pages and pages of delicious moments…..
Here is one more…( put a sweet smile on my face):
“Defne was gone but Ada was here.
Kostas was worried that he was failing her. He had been withdrawn and taciturn this past year, a cloud of lethargy looming over everything he said and couldn’t say”.
They had been so close once, he and Ada. Like a bird imbuing each tale with suspense, he would tell her about night-blooming chocolate flowers, slowgrowing lithops — flowering stones — that strangely resembled pebbles, and Mimosa pudica, a plant so shy it would shrink away at the slightest touch. It warmed his heart to see his daughter’s endless fascination with nature; he would always patiently answer her questions. Back then, such was the strength of their bond that Defne, only half jokingly, would complain: ‘I’m jealous. See how Ada listens to you! She admires you, darling’”.

The symbolic relationship between humans and plants take several forms. Plants help humans breathe by providing us with oxygen, and humans help plants breathe by providing them with carbon dioxide….
It’s a relationship made from love.💕🌳

Congrats to Elif Shafak…. a beautiful novel indeed!

Thank you Netgalley, Bloomsbury Publishing…and Elif Shafak

4.99 rating







(less)
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Nov 27, 2021Jen rated it it was amazing
Shelves: 5-star-favourites
I feel I should be on my knees talking with the trees that surround my home. For they give us shade, flowers, protection, and fruit. And although they are not a fig tree, as the one in this story, I’m sure they each have their own story to tell.

This was bewitching. A fig tree, transplanted from Cyprus to England. A couple forced to leave because of the raging political divide on Cyprus between the Greeks and the Turks in the ‘70’s. A daughter struggling with her own identity in this decade.

The chapters run parallel with the fig tree’s life, a forbidden love story, and Ada, the daughter of the couple.

A reminder that families are like trees. Their roots spread wide and deep but also they can become damaged with trauma. There can be death and life. A delicate balance.

Beautifully written with an intriguing and mystical character, the Fig tree. The beauty and knowledge of many insects and the role they play in the ecosystem.

If you weren’t a tree hugger before, I’m sure you will be one after reading this.
A divine story worthy of a 5 ⭐️Crowning.
(less)
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Mar 30, 2022Jaidee rated it did not like it · review of another edition
Shelves: under-two-stars-books
1 "Jaidee and Aphrodite are both very upset" star !!

First of all a warm thank you to my lovely GR friends who provided beautiful reviews and support around my attempting of this book. This includes Angela M, Elyse W., Jen (Mississauga), David, and Marialyce. Also a warm thank you to Cheri for her support and Mischenko for her well wishes.

This review disappeared twice so here I go a third time. Aye Hera must be after me !

All you lovely people except David adored this one. I so enjoyed the reviews and was excited to get to this one and immerse myself in this novel. However once again,

I am on Outlier Island but you are all invited to visit as it is beautiful and warm here just like it is in
Ancient Cyprus. One big difference here though is that our fig trees are just fig trees. They provide delicious succulent fruit. These fig trees do not pseudo-philosophize, recite a politically correct neutral historical retelling, fall in love with humans nor provide saccharine blatant symbolism to describe womens' magazine ideas of trauma. The fig trees are just fig trees here on Outlier Island.

I just had to stop at 45 percent as I should not be yawning at unidimensional stock characters, nor be bored by a family history nor be irritated by stilted, awkward prose.

This is barely readable womens' historical fiction masquerading as literature that is not literature nor is it good historical fiction. I respect you all for loving this one. I simply didn't ! And I never want to hear a bloody fig tree talk again.

(less)
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Oct 26, 2021Jasmine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
The Island of Missing Trees is a magnificent story about love, loss, identity, and nature.

Set in 1974 Cyprus, the country is in turmoil between the two religious groups on the island. Despite the danger it presents, Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, and Defne, a Turkish Cypriot, are young and in love at a time when there is a lot of turmoil between the two groups living on the island. The only place safe for the two to meet is at a tavern called The Happy Fig. The Happy Fig gets its name from a fig tree planted in the centre. This tree remembers everything that goes on in the tavern. The tree remembers the lover’s secret meetings, war breaking out, and what came after.

Fast forward to present-day London, Ada is grieving the death of her mother. She feels that she can’t open up to Kostas, her father, because he is always buried in his work and talking to the fig tree in their backyard. Ada’s parents raised her in an English-speaking household and have never revealed much about their life in Cyprus. With the help of her visiting aunt, she begins to learn what her parents have left unsaid and discover her identity.

This story has beautiful and lyrical prose with a sprinkle of magical realism. It’s told from the perspectives of Ada, Kostas, and the fig tree. The chapters are short, making this easy to fly through, even though I didn’t want it to end. There is also a helpful glossary of terms.

It explores the harsh realities of war on civilians, the resulting traumas, and ways to heal from it.

I forgot to mention that there’s also a talking parrot. This is the second book I’ve read this month that had one. I see a trend and, authors, I would like all future novels to have one too, please.

This was my first Elif Shafak novel, but it will in no way be my last.

Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing for the arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

For more book reviews, see my blog: https://booksandwheels.com/blog/ (less)
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Nov 17, 2021Diane S ☔ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
A beautiful but sad story. A story of love and war. A story of colonialization, division and those who dared to defy prejudice. A story that shows how the scars, wounds of one generation affects the next. The island of Cyprus, an island divided between the Greeks and Turks, an island that will see much death and destruction. A taverna, where two men, one Greek, one Turkish dared to love each other and will try to help a young couple in love. A couple whose family would not approve of their mixed marriage. A fig tree who will bear witness to all, will be left for dead, but will find a piece of itself saved and taken to London.

When I first encountered this talking fig tree, I thought please don't let this book be corny. First book I've read by this author, so I didn't know to expect the fantastic writing I found within. This fig tree will teach us about nature, the life of trees, the insects and animals that use the trees. Bearing witness to love, war, the culture and events that this island, this young couple, faced. A young girl in the future would wrestle with the culmination of this love and the bullying she faces at school. There is alot here and it shouldn't work, but it does. It's an ingenuous use of magical realism to combine these events into a cohesive and poignant whole. I will, however, feel guilty the next time my grass is mowed.

"Today I think of fanaticism-of any type -as a viral disease. Creeping in menacingly, ticking like a pendulum clock that never winds down, it takes hold of you faster when you are part of an enclosed homogenous unit."

"Bridges appear in our lives only when we are ready."

"The cruelty of life rested not only on its injustices, injuries and atrocities, but also in the randomness of it all.

My monthly read with Angela and Esil. One we all loved. (less)
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Mar 28, 2022David rated it liked it · review of another edition
This isn't awful, but it could have been much better. The latest novel from Elif Shafak is set in Cyprus and London, examining the lives of those who left the island during the unrest in the 1970s, those who stayed, and those of the next generation who live with the scars of civil strife. The fig tree at the heart of the story is a nice metaphor: transplanted from its native Cyprus, it needs extra care in order to adapt to its new London ecosystem. The fig tree is also emblematic of what's wrong with this book. Shafak has a tendency to hit a metaphor so hard that the book almost feels YA. The fig tree here talks, or at least narrates, and roughly half of the book is first-person narration by the tree. There is a beautiful story here among the human characters, particularly in the present day, but it becomes buried beneath heavy handed metaphors, excessive exposition, and talking flora. The book itself needs tending to like the fig tree: a healthy pruning would have done wonders. (less)
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Aug 29, 2021Amalia Gkavea rated it it was amazing
Shelves: 1970s, magical-realism, world-culture, 20th-century, cyprus, european-literature, folklore, historical-fiction, netgalley-books, literary-fiction
"Once upon a memory, at the far end of the Mediterranean Sea, there lay an island so beautiful and blue that the many travellers, pilgrims, crusaders and merchants who fell in love with it either wanted never to leave or tried to tow it with hemp ropes all the way back to their own countries.
Legends, perhaps.
But legends are there to tell us what history has forgotten."

The scent of gardenia, cyclamen, lavender, honeysuckle. A story full of flowers, their beauty and essence and fragility. Birds, the symbols of escape and freedom. Cicadas, bees and butterflies. Images of beauty and togetherness, violently torn by the evil doings of an obsessive, barbaric minority. And why is it that the few always see their work done and the many suffer? History hasn't found the answer yet. And if she has, she has kept it under lock and key for millennia.

"There are many things that a border – even one as clear-cut and well- guarded as this – cannot prevent from crossing. The Etesian wind, for instance, the softly named but surprisingly strong meltemi or meltem. The butterflies, grasshoppers and lizards. The snails, too, painfully slow though they are. Occasionally, a birthday balloon that escapes a child’s grip, drifts in the sky, strays into the other side – enemy territory."

People coexist in peace until the Devil is let loose. Wounds can't be healed. Star-crossed lovers and children who pay the price. A daughter that detects people's sadness. A rage that needs to be released, otherwise she will be smothered by her own feelings of screaming into the void, of not belonging anywhere. She will fall into the trap of despair created by a bunch of school brats that are in dire need of a) a serious punishment and b) lessons of respect. I thank God every day that our schools in Greece haven't been touched by the curse of the VIP "students", the cliques and the "squads" of future prostitutes and thugs.

"Humans walk by us every day, they sit and sleep, smoke and picnic in our shade, they pluck our leaves and gorge themselves on our fruit, they break our branches, riding them like horses as children or using them to birch others into submission when they become older and crueller, they carve their lover’s name on our trunks and vow eternal love, they weave necklaces out of our needles and paint our flowers into art, they split us into logs to heat their homes and sometimes they chop us down just because we obstruct their view, they make cradles, wine corks, chewing gum and rustic furniture, and produce the most spellbinding music out of us, and they turn us into books in which they lose themselves on cold winter nights, they use our wood to manufacture coffins in which they end their lives, buried six feet under with us, and they even compose romantic poems to us, calling us the link between earth and sky, and yet still they do not see us."


The bond between a father and a daughter. The love between two young people.The symbolism of the fig tree that lies in the heart of the Mediterranean. Wood is part of a human's life and the home for so many species. And here, it is given voice. And what a voice this is! A fig tree narrates its story, its love for a human being. It shows how important it is to keep your culture and your roots alive in our modern world. But keeping your memories is another thing entirely for it may become continuous torture. A curse.

There are numerous, exciting references to the customs of the two peoples of the land and Shafak presents them in sheer beauty. As far as the characters are concerned, Defne, Ada and Kostas are wonderful. Rich personalities, marvellously portrayed and developed, sympathetic, real. But, I loathed Meryem, excuse me. Too much of a know-it-all chatterbox for my taste and quite stupid with her superstitious nonsense. All this talk of djinns, taking a child to an exorcist. How about buying some actual brains? And reading some BASIC history? Asking which side of Cyprus the child is going to visit first, preaching peace but being thoroughly consumed by her own narrow-mindedness. She probably represents the uneducated, prejudiced, brain-washed part regardless of ethnicity or religion. And keep those "desserts", they suck anyway... Also, Meryem, the Middle Ages have called. They want their attitude back.

The bitter conflict is approached with sensitivity and melancholy, but I will not refer to the historical or political implications. These are well-known and the Internet is not a place for such discussions. Not to mention the fact that it is a futile polemic, anyway. And to be honest, this is an issue where there can't be "two" sides. An invasion IS an invasion and it cannot be sugar-coated.

Moving Author's Note. Exquisite!

If the beauty of Shafak's writing doesn't make you cry, you need Jesus.

"A map is a two- dimensional representation with arbitrary symbols and incised lines that decide who is to be our enemy and who is to be our friend, who deserves our love and who deserves our hatred and who, our sheer indifference.
Cartography is another name for stories told by winners.
For stories told by those who have lost, there isn’t one."

Many thanks to Viking and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.word... (less)
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Apr 14, 2022Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Recommended to Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ by: Books with Brittany
Shelves: 5-stars, fiction, audio, nature, adult, hardback-own, makes-me-cry, mother-earth-etc, favorites, don-t-ask-me-questions-about-what-i
This book definitely made me cry 🥺



I don’t even know what to say really. I loved the Fig telling her part of the story. I mean as a tree lover that was something super special. Kostas with his love of animals and nature made me love him from point A. But, there are some sad things in the book. I’m not even going to hint at those parts, they involve people, wildlife and trees. The owners of The Happy Fig damn near broke me. (Read the book)

I’m just going to leave with a few quotes, the first is from Ada. I’ve done exactly what she does in this quote but it was many times in my home and not school. And the I’ll leave some from the Fig.

*Ada*


Her voice cracked but persisted. There was something profoundly humiliating yet equally electrifying about hearing yourself scream - breaking off, breaking away, uncontrolled, unfettered, without knowing how far it would carry you, this untamed force that rose from inside. It was an animal thing. A wilderness thing. Nothing about her belonged to her previous self at that moment. Above all her voice. This could have been the high shriek of a hawk, the soul-haunting howl of a wolf, the rasping cry of a red fox at midnight. It could have been any of them, but not the scream of a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl.

*Fig*




I wish I could have told him that loneliness is a human invention. Trees are never lonely. Humans think they know with certainty where their being ends and someone else’s starts. With their roots tangled and caught up underground, linked to fungi and bacteria, trees harbour no such illusions. For us, everything is interconnected.

I don’t have any of their charms, I admit. If you were to pass me on the street, you probably wouldn’t give me another glance. But I’d like to believe I’m attractive in my own way. What I lack in beauty and popularity, I make up for in mystery and inner strength.

Most arboreal suffering is caused by humankind.
Trees in urban areas grow faster than trees in rural areas. We also tend to die sooner.
Would people really like to know these things? I don’t think so. Frankly, I am not even sure they see us.
Humans walk by us every day, they sit and sleep, smoke and picnic in our shade, they pluck leaves and gorge themselves on our fruit, they break our branches, riding them like horses as children or using them to birch others into submission when they become older and crueller, they carve their lover’s name on our trunks and vow eternal love, they weave necklaces out of our needles and paint our flowers into art, they split us into logs to heat their homes and sometimes they chop us down just because we obstruct their view, they make cradles, wine corks, chewing gum and rustic furniture, and produce the most spellbinding music out of us, and they turn us into books in which they lose themselves on cold winter nights, they use our wood to manufacture coffins in which they end their lives, buried six feet under with us, and they even compose romantic poems to us, calling us the link between earth and sky, and yet they still do not see us.

Long after the island was partitioned and the tavern fell into disrepair, Kostas Kazantzakis took a cutting from one of my branches and put it in his suitcase. I guess I will always be grateful to him for doing that, otherwise nothing of me might have remained.



Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

MY BLOG: https://melissa413readsalot.blogspot.... (less)
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Sep 01, 2021Vicky "phenkos" rated it really liked it
Shelves: historical-fiction, ya
There were parts of the book I found deeply satisfying and moving and other parts that frustrated me or that I rushed over, and my rating reflects this.

In 2010s London a 16-year old girl, Ada Kazantzakis, who recently lost her mother, is having a hard time adjusting to her new life. Her father is having a hard time too. An ecologist and botanist, Kostas Kazantzakis is more at ease among his plants than with other people or his daughter. And what about the dead mother? We are told small bits here and there, and the only certainty is that she was very much loved by both her husband and her daughter. And the other relatives? The other relatives never set foor in her home and they declined to even be in her funeral. But why?

Told through alternating points of view, that of young Ada, but also a fig tree that speaks in the first person and used to live in Nicosia, Cyprus before a cut was transported to London, the story of two young lovers whose love was strictly forbidden unfolds bit by bit. The reader is taken back to 1974 Cyprus just before the events of ethnic violence and partition that took place on the island. We gradually find out that the love of the two young people was forbidden because one of them was a Greek Cypriot (Kostas) and the other a Turkish Cypriot (Defne). Even before the partition, people were unhappy about communities intermingling in this way, and the young lovers' parents would disapprove. But when violence erupts and people get killed in the streets, their relationship becomes impossible. Will they rise above the circumstances and save their relationship or will they allow the world, including their parents, to tear them apart? We know through young Ada's existence that they stayed together and had a child. But the reality of what happened is much more complex and circuitous than this fact alone attests to. An incident at school that upsets Ada, an aunt that arrives seemingly out of nowhere and a fig tree that has seen much and can say much if only you knew how to ask will be the catalysts for change and growth.

I loved the theme that Elif Shafak chose for this book: the ethnic violence that tore the island apart, the trauma of civil war, the silence that victims of violence endure... Shafak does not accuse or judge, and when a character in the book asks the question 'Who did that, Greeks or Turks?' referring to a gay couple that were brutally murdered, the reply is 'islanders, just like all of us'. A sense of common identity and belonging is fostered in the book. But this common identity is hard, even impossible in the face of so much bloodshed and wounding... Shafak of course is aware of this, and has her main characters stamped by the violence inexorably. Without wanting to reveal what happens to the main characters, suffice it to say that people do not quite rise above the circumstances but carry their wounding with them to the end.

The characters were very vivid and I really cared for them, especially young Ada. I also liked how Shafak intergated issues of global warming and climate change in her narrative: through the fig tree that talks about the arboreal condition and through Kostas' work. The aunt was a striking character proving that healing sometimes comes not through the wise but through the simple. But the plot was so riveting I sometimes found myself rushing through the pages and skipping stuff just to find out what happened to the characters next. The language was lyrical, too lyrical at times. This will certainly delight people with a penchant for lyricism but others, maybe not so much.

For me the biggest achievement of the book is bringing the wounding of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities out into the open. This may be a thankless task. One of the characters in the book is heavily involved in finding the missing people in Cyprus, seeking information from local residents and using sophisticated DNA analysis to identify the remains. But when second-generation Cypriots are asked to tell their story, some of them react badly, with hostility. 'Why do you stir things up?' seems to be the message. But the author is right to think that traumas have been submerged for too long, and that the third generation are freer and less intimidated than their parents. When Kostas agreed to Defne's request not to burden young Ada with stories of her origin, little did he know that Ada would sooner or later want to know about her past, and her parents' past. Young people today do not stay content with vague ideas about a brighter future. They are irreverent, less constricted in their attitudes and with a curiosity and desire to dig things up that is really heartening and endearing. I have a lot of confidence in this younger generation, and Shafak has too!!

Thank you, netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. (less)
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Aug 07, 2021Cheri rated it it was amazing
Shelves: 2021-favourites, england, 2021, family-relationships, love, cyprus, 1970s, 2010s, 2021-ng-challenge

’It will have blood: They say blood will have blood. Stones have been known to move and trees to speak…’
-- William Shakespeare, Macbeth

A story of life and death, love and loathing, the seductive power of beauty, the destructive power of cruelty, and the healing nature of love and laughter.

This begins in England, momentarily leaving it to return to the beginning of this story, shared in this brief moment by a Ficus carica, a common fig who shares the indignity of being called ’common’ in any sense, memories of the past, the proud history of its adaptation across the world as they were carried across the globe. The narration of this story is shared by others as the story continues, returning periodically to the viewpoints of this tree who has seen and heard so much throughout its lifetime.

This is the first time I have read this author, and I was completely bewitched by this story, the way she weaves the stories of individuals who only briefly appear, looking deep inside these people for their truths. Their pain that they do not share, and the love that they keep inside, hiding from it, as well. Their joys and their fears.

Ada is at the forefront as this begins in London in 2010, a 16-year-old who has recently lost her mother, Defne. Her father, Kostas, lost in his own sorrow, can’t seem to reach her to help her navigate her grief. Her pain is tangible, and one day while in school, her pain is released in one long, piercing scream that is captured on a classmate’s cell phone, shared online, and goes viral. Now she is humiliated in addition to her pain.

In their garden grows a Ficus carica, it is the only physical connection Ada has to a history she knows little about, to the mother that she has lost, to the island where they met, and their story, which she knows little about. Secrets kept from her, if not intentionally. This tree carries those secrets inside.

Tackling the cultural differences that divided Cyprus in the 1970s, it also shares the story of Kostas and Defne, how they met, and continue to embrace a relationship, one that must remain hidden. They meet secretly at The Happy Fig, a café with a fig tree growing inside, which is also home to Chico, a parrot. It is a love that must remain hidden to their families, their differences that are at the heart of the cultural divide. One a Greek Christian, the other a Turkish Muslim. But love never takes such things into account, love insists on defying boundaries, the very nature of love lies in its belief it is invincible.

Published: 02 Nov 2021

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Bloomsbury USA, Bloomsbury Publishing (less)
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Oct 18, 2021Barbara rated it it was amazing


The Island of Missing Trees revolves around a couple who met in Cyprus shortly before the 1974 Cypriot civil war.

In a nutshell: Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean Sea with a long history of being occupied or administered by different countries. In modern times, Cyprus was under the dominion of the British Empire from 1878 to 1960, when the island became independent. At that time, Cyprus was largely populated by Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, each of whom considered the island to be part of their home country.



To broker peace, the Zurich Agreement of 1960 recognized the equality and autonomy of the Greek and Turkish communities, which would be politically and culturally separate. Nevertheless, continuing conflict led to a 1974 civil war that (essentially) divided the country into 'Turkish Cyprus' in the north and 'Greek Cyprus' in the south.



A romance between a Greek boy and a Turkish girl would be excoriated by both communities, and that's the conflict at the center of this gorgeous novel.

The story rotates among three time periods: 1974; the early 2010s, and the late 2010s.

⦿ 1974: Two teenagers in Nicosia, Cyprus - a Christian Greek boy named Kostas and a Muslim Turkish girl called Defne - are in love.



They can't be seen together, so they meet in the back room of a taverna called The Happy Fig. The popular hangout is run by two men, Greek Cypriot Yiorgos and Turkish Cypriot Yusuf, who are sympathetic to the young couple's plight.



The Happy Fig is an ethnic eatery, described as follows: "The entrance of the tavern was partially covered with twisting vines of honeysuckle. Inside, solid black beams ran the length and breadth of the ceiling, from which hung garlands of garlic, onion, drying herbs, chili peppers and cured sausages. There were twenty-two tables....and a charcoal grill at the back from which the smell of flatbread wafted daily, along with the enticing aromas of cooking meats."



To add to the taverna's ambiance, a Ficus carica (fig tree) sat in the middle of the dining area, growing through a cavity in the roof, and a resident parrot called Chico landed on people's shoulders and tried to snatch their food.





On their first evening at The Happy Fig, Kostas and Defne could afford nothing more than water, but the taverna's owners sent a tray with stuffed vine leaves, shrimp saganaki, chicken souvlaki with tsatziki sauce, moussaka, and pitta bread.


Stuffed Vine Leaves


Shrimp Saganaki


Chicken Souvlaki with Tsatziki Sauce


Moussaka


Pitta Bread

The happy young couple enjoyed every mouthful....and the Ficus watched it all. The fig tree is actually one of the book's narrators, and its long life, ability to converse with birds and insects, powers of observation, and intellect make it uniquely knowledgeable and articulate.

Though Kostas and Defne were only dimly aware of it, there was big trouble on the horizon, spurred by deep divisions between Greeks and Turks, rising unrest, and increasing terrorism.

*****

⦿ Early 2010s: The Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) is digging up sites in Cyprus, looking for the remains of people killed in the 1974 civil war. Thousands of people, both Greeks and Turks, are unaccounted for.....



......and the teams searching for them are composed of archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, geneticists, forensic specialists, and others. The CMP works from information supplied by anonymous informants, and is hoping to reunite the deceased with their families.



A CMP searcher observes, "Sometimes you search for weeks on end and achieve nothing. It's frustrating. Some of the informants misremember the details, others deliberately lead us on wild goose chases. You search for victims, you encounter medieval, Roman, Hellenistic bones. Or prehistoric fossils....Then, just when you think you are going nowhere, you find mass graves." Explaining the need to hurry, the worker goes on, "The older generation is dying, taking their secrets with them to the grave. If we don't dig now, in a decade or so there won't be anyone left to tell us the whereabouts of the missing. It's a race against time, really.'

The CMP workers go on to discuss similar searches in Spain, Argentina, Chile and other countries that experienced internal conflict - and the stories are heart-wrenching.

*****

⦿ Late 2010s: Kostas and his teenage daughter Ada are living in London, mourning the recent death of Defne. Kostas, engulfed by grief over the loss of his wife, throws himself into his work - researching and writing about plants, animals, nature and ecosystems.



Kostas seems most comfortable with his fig tree, grown from a cutting of the fig tree in The Happy Fig taverna. Kostas talks to his fig tree, and the tree talks back....but Kostas can't hear it.



In fact the the fig tree is quite loquacious. For instance, one winter afternoon the tree hears a bird and muses, "Inside the hedge a whitethroat began to sing - swift, scratchy notes. I wondered what a North African warbler was doing in our garden at this time of year. Why hadn't it left for warmer places with all the others that must now be on their way south, and who, if they made a slight change in their flight path, might just as well head towards Cyprus and visit my motherland."



As for Ada, she's overwhelmed by the loss of her mother, feels shut out by her father, and has problems concentrating at school.



Ada experiences an additional emptiness because her parents never talked about Cyprus and she's never met any of her Cypriot relatives. Kostas and Defne wanted Ada to feel English, but the teen feels a pull toward Cyprus, a sort of epigenetic longing.

Nevertheless, when Defne's sister, Aunt Meryem, comes to London for a visit, Ada's first instinct is to be standoffish and distant. In large part, this is because Meryem didn't come to Defne's funeral, and Ada is angry at Meryem and all the other Cypriot relatives.



Like many Cypriot islanders, Meryem is deeply superstitious. On her first night in London, Meryem does a ritual for the dead near Kostas's fig tree, to guide Defne's spirit to safety. The tree, who's seen it all before, muses, "Humans have always sensed there was something uncanny about me and my kind....In Judaism, sitting under a fig tree has long been associated with a deep, devout study of the Torah....The Prophet Mohammed said the fig was the one tree that he wished to see in paradise....It was while meditating under a Ficus religiosa that Buddha attained enlightenment....and King David was fond of us." The Ficus goes on and on like this, explaining how special its kind are. (This is one smart fig tree!! 🙂)


Buddha under a Ficus religiosa

Meryem's visit does give Ada the opportunity to ask questions about Cyprus, and Meryem reveals some surprising truths about Ada's parents and their families. Meryem also likes to cook, and tells Ada, "Food is the heart of a culture. You don't know your ancestors' cuisine, you don't know who you are." Then Meryem goes on to extoll the virtues of Turkish baklava, saying, "Everyone makes baklava, true, but not everyone succeeds. We Turks make it crispy with roasted pistachios. That's the right way. Greeks use raw walnuts - God knows who gave them that idea, it just ruins the taste."


Turkish Baklava


Greek Baklava

In many ways, Kostas is the most sensitive character in the book, with his deep love of nature and his pain at its destruction. Kostas doesn't believe humans have the right to exploit everything in the world, which makes him something of an outlier. For example, one day young Kostas is watching his mother preserving songbirds (a Cypriot delicacy), opening their breasts with her thumbs and stuffing them with salt and spices. A wave of nausea overcomes the boy, and crying, he says, "Don't do that, Mama. I don't want to eat them anymore." Years later, Kostas tries to interfere with songbird poachers, which doesn't work out too well for him.


Songbird Dish

I like historic novels that enlighten me, and this one has bits about Greek customs; Turkish culture; the history of Cyprus; Greek mythology; and much more. The novel is also filled with beautiful word pictures, exemplified by one of the London fig tree's memories of Cyprus: "Of the past we left behind I remember everything. Coastlines etched in the sandy terrain like creases in a palm waiting to be read, the chorus of cicadas against the rising heat, bees buzzing over lavender fields, butterflies stretching their wings at the first promise of light.....many may try, but no one does optimism better than butterflies."

This is a memorable story with an unexpected (and very nifty) ending. Highly recommended.

FYI: At the end of the book, Elif Shafak describes how she researched the book, and includes a bibliography. Shafak also provides a glossary of foreign phrases, such as: abla - older sister (Turkish); ambelopoulia - a dish of grilled, fried, pickled, or boiled songbirds (Greek); kardoula mou - my little heart (Greek); majnun - a crazy person (Arabic); nazar - evil eye (Turkish); and many more.


Nazar (evil eye on necklace.....for good luck)

Thanks to Netgalley, Elif Shafak, and Bloomsbury Publishing for a copy of the book.

You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com (less)
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Jul 08, 2021Neil rated it it was ok
Shelves: 2021
The blurb makes it clear that a tree is significant in this book, a fig tree that grows in the centre of a tavern and out through the roof. What the blurb doesn’t spell out is that a large part of the novel is narrated by this tree. I wish I had known that before I started reading because, in all honesty, I probably would not have started: I have a bad history with books narrated by non-humans. Clearly, this is a personal taste thing: the early reviews of the book on NetGalley (which is where I got my copy - my thanks to the publisher for an ARC) almost universally praise Shafak for this narrative choice, but I am afraid it rather ruined the book for me. Clearly, you should read it to make up your own mind: this is just my reaction.

At the start of the book, after a brief introduction to the history of Cyprus that ends with two bodies in a well, we are with Ada, a young girl in a London classroom. When she is set some homework for the Christmas holidays that requires her to interview an older relative, we learn that all her relatives, with the exception of her parents, are in Cyprus and she has never met them. There is clearly history here. Something triggers within Ada leading to some extreme behaviour. After this, the story starts to switch between Ada’s narrative (set in the late 2010s) and that of her parents, Kostas and Defne, set mostly in 1974 but also, later on in the book, dropping in on the early 2000s for another crucial period. Ada’s story is about uncovering/discovering roots. Her parents’ story, part of Ada’s root system, is about love in a time of division and war.

Structurally, the book is very reminiscent of Richard Powers’ “The Overstory”. The central sections are named for parts of a tree (roots, trunk, branches and ecosystem for Shafak here and similarly for Powers). Both books contain a lot of science about trees. If you’ve read The Overstory (or “The Hidden/Secret Life of Trees”) there’s nothing new here, but if you haven’t read those books, get ready to have your mind blown by the behaviour of trees. For me, I have to say that it didn’t work well here having a tree passing on all that science about itself and its relatives and it worked even less well when other creatures started passing on information to the tree that they had read in human books or on human gravestones. But, again, that’s my personal taste interfering.

And it’s not just trees here. Migration is a key idea and both birds and butterflies put in appearances with some additional science.

But I guess Cyprus is the key focus here. We are drawn in because we are hearing the story of two lovers, but the chapters narrated by our friend the fig tree often take time to fill in some of the details of Cypriot history. One of the main characters becomes involved in the Committee on Missing Persons (https://www.cmp-cyprus.org/) which was set up in order to try to find the remains of the many, many people who disappeared during the upheavals and Shafak explains in an afterword that several stories of missing people included in the book are based on true accounts.

This is a novel full of ideas and themes. For me, some of those themes are under-developed, especially those in Ada’s story where something dramatic is picked up by social media but then the whole thing just fizzles out.

I wish I could have loved this book more. And I know it’s me not the book, but I just can’t get past the erudite tree that tells us a lot of the story. I know there’s such a thing as magical realism, but, for my taste, that didn’t sit well here with all the science and history and culture.

But, read it for yourself because there’s every chance you will love the tree like everyone else seems to. (less)
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Jan 24, 2022Amina rated it it was amazing
Shelves: favorites
10 highlights
The Island of Missing Trees is a magnificent love story of life, loss, love, pain, acceptance, defiance, and resilience.

I have read several of Elif Shafak's books and this one may be one of my favorites. Shafak tells a tale of the war-torn island of Cyprus and the conflicts between Turks and Greek, Christians and Muslims.

Shafak writes with a wondrous imagination of a Fig Tree that breathes an uncanny life into the backdrop of the novel. Initially, I felt a bit jaded about a Fig Tree transforming into a character, but then I remembered something profoundly sentimental in my own life that tied my family to a tree.

After my father passed away, there was a tree that shaded the bay window in his room. He planted that tree with the idea that it would protect him in the afternoon from the blazing sun. Once he had cancer and spent most of his time in his room, the tree (now that I recall) almost seemed to be his friend. I never really paid much attention to the tree, until his passing.

A week or so after his death, we woke up in the morning to see this large sprawling tree snapped in half, laying lifeless against the grass. That was the moment I realized that trees and humans have an interconnectedness that many don't realize.

If you plant it, you most definitely must care for it. My father always had a green thumb, he was tender to his tree-his friend. I recall my mother saying, the tree died from a broken heart.

Kostas, a lover of trees has brought his Fig Tree along with him to London from Cyprus. After the passing of his wife Defne, he forms a peculiar relationship to the tree. His teen daughter Ada worries about her father's infatuation with the tree.

Yet, the tree is the connection to his past. Kostas was a Greek Christian and Defne, a Turkish Muslim. Their love was a forbidden one, hidden against the treacherous terrain of war and heartache.

The Island of Missing Trees spans over three decades from the 1970s to almost the present day. We waltz between Cyprus and England. In England, we are introduced to Kostas' teen daughter Ada. Ada has just lost her mother, reeling with pain. When her mother's aunt Maream comes to stay with the family a new story unfolds. Although Ada is disillusioned and apathetic to her parents' past, she begins to unravel the mysteries that tied her mother and father together.

Shafak writes with precise eloquence and passionate prose about a topic that seems to be dear to her heart. Being Turkish herself, she can weave together the disjointed history and an almost ill-fated relationship between two star-crossed lovers.

I adored this book for its eloquent writing and moving story. 5/5 stars. (less)
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Nov 21, 2021Marialyce (absltmom, yaya) rated it it was amazing
Shelves: library-overdrive, books-of-2021
The trees know. They have through millennia been here. They are witness to our history as violent as it is. They have loved us and yet they see what we have become. They know what we are capable of and through the senses of a special fig tree, we are witnesses to a sad and tragic story.

What causes the most pain on our planet? Could it be death and destruction brought on by the many ways in which war starts?

It is a theme that runs through history, one that pits race against race, color against color, and the human race against what nature has said they are. Add to that religion which has divided us through the ages as if god considers one faith superior to another.

This story deals wonderfully with the consequences of a man and woman falling in love with other even though the mores of the times demand that their love is wrong, indecent, and immoral. However, love does not know country lines, religious bigotry, or boundaries. It transcends all making the above issues irrelevant and mindless.

This story is set in Cyprus where strict lines have been drawn between the Greeks and the Muslims. One traversing over these lines offers them so up to ridicule and ostracism.

Yet, Kostos and Defne do. They have the nerve to fall in love. Set inside the Cyprus civil war, the author takes us through the prejudices, the hated, the murder that occurs when people are trained to hate those who they live with. (Sounds familiar does it not?)

Wonderfully told with an open eye on war against neighbor and its repercussions that do travel through generations, this excellent story can show us how we might recognize from whence we come and make our impact felt on presenting a better future.

The trees point the way to life. They know our story since it blends with theirs. Perhaps their way to coexist with all is the future humankind needs to take as a way of life. (less)
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Jan 05, 2022Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: buddy-read-with-beth
I’m going to try my hand at a quick review for this one. I’m grateful I finally tried this author. I own several of her books, and wow, this one is so special. Thanks to Beth for buddy reading it with me.

The Island of Missing Trees is about a teenage girl named Ada, her parents’ young love, and a fig tree.

Yes, the fig tree is one of the narrators, and that is part of its magic. I don’t know how Shafak made that work, but it does in this case.

Ada’s parents are young, in love, and living in Cyprus- one a Turkish Cypriot; the other a Greek Cypriot. A civil war breaks out between the two groups and Kostas and Defne are very much in the middle.

I loved this book and its messages. It’s absolutely huggable. I couldn’t give it the full five stars because I was a little more invested in some of the storylines over others. As a bit of a tree hugger, I loved the voice of the tree. It was refreshing and enlightening, too. I cannot wait to read more of Elif Shafak’s books.

Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader (less)
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Nov 25, 2021Neale rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
The narrative is split into three different parts. Geographically it is set on two Islands, Cyprus and England.

The novel opens in England, 2010. Ada is sixteen years-old and has just lost her mother. A quiet girl, her mother’s passing only adding to her withdrawal. One day in school she stands and screams primordially. The scream is recorded on somebody’s phone and goes viral. She is immediately ostracized, ridiculed, and teased by her classmates and complete strangers, but then positive posts start to pop up.

The second part of the novel is set in Cyprus in 1974. Ada’s parents are very much in love, but unfortunately for Kostas and Defne, theirs is a love that is closer to forbidden than taboo. Kostas is Greek, and Defne is Turkish. Kostas is Christian, Defne is Muslim. In 1974 Cyprus, the political and religious divide, an almost insurmountable chasm dividing them both. They must keep their affair secret from everybody, especially their families.

The third part of the story is narrated by a fig tree, and it is this part that makes the book shine. The fig tree lives centrally in a tavern and is central to the narrative. Reading the tree narrating the story and seeing things from her, yes, the tree is female, perspective is quite eye opening. At points the tree almost makes it obvious to the reader that we humans, as a species, are a menace to the other species and the world. The wars, the hatred, the violence between different cultures difficult for a tree to understand. It is this part in which we learn much of Cyprus’ tragic history. The horrific civil war and division of the island. The atrocities that took place, the bodies found in mass graves. Families with no bodies to bury.

The novel highlights the cruelty and injustice that we inflict on ourselves all in the name of religion and difference of belief. The innocent civilians who are swept up in these never-ending civil wars that seem to always be raging in a myriad of locations around the globe. Wars which then lead to displacement, as families flee for their lives, becoming immigrants, many times far from home for the lucky ones, homeless refugees for the others. This is still going on all over the world while I type.

Ada knows next to nothing about her parent’s history on Cyprus. This was her mother’s wish, hoping to shield her from Cyprus’ brutal past. But she starts to learn more when her Aunt Meryem comes to visit. Because of the bitter blood between the families Meryem did not even attend Defne’s funeral. As Ada gets to know Meryem more, she starts to realize the situation and conditions her parents had to live with in a divided Cyprus.

At its heart this novel is a beautiful love story, a love that transcends all obstacles, including hatred, distance, and time. It is a novel about identity. Identity can be hard to establish when you live on an island that’s rule and culture has changed so often through the generations. It is about overcoming past trauma, trauma passed on from generation and not letting this trauma define your life. But it is so much more as well. It is a statement for us to try and put our beliefs and differences aside. Respect the view of the person on the other side of the fence. Imagine a world of tolerance and civility. A world with no wars, no genocide, just harmony and peace. Maybe if we could be a little more like the trees.

All of this written in Shafak’s beautiful style. One of my favourite reads this year. (less)
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Nov 28, 2021Jonathan K (Plot & Characters Matter) rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Immersive and heart warming the author combines themes of love, loss and redemption with the history of Cyprus in the story of a Greek family in London. As it toggles back and forth through time periods, the viewpoint of a fig tree is included due to its connection with Kostas Kozanzakis, a widower and father. First we meet Ada during a high school classroom trauma and soon after her father whose knowledge of trees is beyond compare. I was a bit overwhelmed by all the history but thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. It's rich in details of Greek and Turkish folklore as well as the tragedies of battles. The reader is taken on a journey into the life of Kostas, his deceased wife Defne and her sister Meryem who comes to visit them in England. Ada initially rejects her but warms up over time, never having known her when Defne was alive. In some respects its tedious due to the copious history and back stories, though I understand why the facts were needed. Well crafted and unique, it's a book definitely worth reading. (less)
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Feb 17, 2022Adam Dalva rated it it was amazing
A curious spell came over me as I read this book - it isn't short, but at a critical moment of reunion, I blinked and 50 pages had gone by. Memorable characters, big sweeping emotions, lots of pain, and beautifully researched. Lush, lush, lush! (less)
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Dec 23, 2021Cathrine ☯️ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: favorites
5🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳
An exquisite heartbreak of a story full of things based in facts and events narrated by a fig tree.
"A mixture of wonder, dreams, love, sorrow, and imagination" that lit up my neurons on every level.
Definitely one of my favorites of this year.

(less)
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Nov 16, 2021Ron Charles rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: war-fiction, historical-fiction, environmental-fiction
Turkish novelist Elif Shafak has spoken out against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan so forcefully that no one would question her political courage. In her essays and interviews, she has decried her homeland’s alarming descent into authoritarianism, and in return both Shafak and her husband, the journalist Eyup Can, have been targets of Erdogan’s intimidation.

It’s both amazing and encouraging that such state-sponsored thuggery has done nothing to diminish Shafak’s artistic creativity nor her faith in the power of storytelling.

Her latest novel, “The Island of Missing Trees,” takes us to Cyprus, a land of “golden beaches, turquoise waters, lucid skies” and frightful conflict. In 1974, two teenagers — a Greek boy named Kostas and a Turkish girl named Defne — risk their parents’ condemnation by meeting secretly at night. Desperate to avoid the prying eyes of gossipy neighbors, Kostas and Defne find refuge in the backroom of a tavern owned by two men who understand what it’s like to pursue forbidden romance.

The tavern is called the Happy Fig, and it is, indeed, a. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert... (less)
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Feb 03, 2022Books with Brittany rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
I feel simultaneously full and empty now. 💔💕
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Jul 17, 2021Nadia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: fiction, best-of-2021
The Island of Missing Trees is the latest novel by the wonderful storyteller Elif Shafak.

The story starts with teenage Ada who has a breakdown and screams in her class until she runs out of breath. Her mother recently died and Ada has only her dad left. They live in London while the rest of their family lives in Cyprus. Ada has never met any of her relatives from Cyprus until now when Ada's aunt comes to visit. The narrative switches from present day to 1974 when Ada's parents started secretly dating, knowing only too well their love will be condemned by their families because Greek and Turkish Cypriots should not mix. Kostas and Defne regularly meet at the Happy Fig tavern with a fig tree growing in the middle of it through an opening in the roof witnessing the young love and everything else that's happening in the island. The fig is central to the story and it's one of the main narrators of the book which was genius in my opinion.

Shafak's beautiful prose shines through the novel and it made me pause and even reread certain paragraphs which I almost never do. The Island of Missing Trees is a story of love, conflict of religions, suffering, hope, but also a beautiful declaration of love for nature, especially trees.

I was drawn to this book because I like the author, but mainly because of the location where the story takes place - Cyprus. I spent a few months there working and travelling a decade ago. I was well aware of the animosity between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots but I have never actually read the history of their conflict which the novel discusses with sensitivity.

This was my third book by Elif Shafak and probably my favourite one.


Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my review copy in exchange for an honest review. (less)
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Sep 26, 2021Melki rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: gift-from-publisher, hug-a-tree, best-of-2021
'They used to say, Greeks and Turks are flesh and fingernail. You can't separate your fingernail from your flesh. Seems they were wrong. It could be done. War is a terrible thing. All kinds of wars. But civil wars are the worst perhaps, when old neighbours become new enemies.'

Ada looked towards her father, anger illuminating her eyes. 'Come on, Dad, I'm not a child. I get it. You're Greek. Mum is Turkish, opposite tribes, blood feud. You upset some people when you got married, didn't you?'

This is one of those books, one of those wonderful books, one of the best kinds of books, where you have trouble putting into words just what it's about, and why you loved it SO DARNED MUCH.

So, here are scattered quotes, and thoughts that can maybe be tied together to figure out why this was the best book I've read this year.

. . . all trees perennially communicate, compete and cooperate, both above and below the ground, so too do stories germinate, grow and come into bloom upon each other's invisible roots.

The above is a quote from our narrator, a fig tree. That's right - a tree tells the tale. A very giving, very wise tree.

Even so, I understand, none of that makes me entitled to love a human being and hope to be loved back. Not a very sensible thing to do, I admit, to fall for someone who is not of your kind, someone who will only complicate your life, disrupt your routine and mess with your sense of stability and rootedness. But then again, anyone who expects love to be sensible has perhaps never loved.

Did I mention it's a very wise tree?

When elderly Cypriot women wish ill on someone, they don't ask for anything blatantly bad to befall them. They don't pray for lightning bolts, unforseen accidents or sudden reversals of fortune. They simply say,
May you never be able to forget.
May you go to your grave still remembering.

Memories are not always happy, and this book is, at times, overwhelmingly sad, yet there is great beauty here. The author conjures up some stunningly lovely, unforgettable imagery. (THIS is the one I can't stop thinking about: (view spoiler))

Anyway - see for yourself what the fuss is all about.


Oh, and one more quote that I just adore for personal reasons:

. . . the bear knows seven songs and they are all about honey.

Mmmm . . . honey . . . (less)
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Oct 07, 2021Terry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
The most beautiful novel I've read in 2021, The Island of Missing Trees pays homage to the beautiful Greek-Turkish/Turkish-Greek island of Cyprus. Kostas and his daughter, Ada, are both still reeling from the loss of his wife/her mother, Defne. We go back and forth in time and between London and Cyprus as the story unfolds, a love story of a novel, love between Kostas and Defne, another young couple who were their friends, a love of trees and nature, and a love of place - this island of Cyprus.

Elif Shafak, the author, manages to include lots of Cyprus's history, including legends and superstitions. She also provides much new-to-me information on trees, plants, and animals. She does this all with stunning, lyrical prose and without leaving the reader feeling overwhelmed. The book is truly transportive; I could clearly envision the Cyprus described in this novel. I could imagine being in London during the brutal storm that was passing through. Best of all, the characters feel like the sort of people one might meet in real life. They have flaws and virtues and rich history and depth. One of the main characters is a fig tree that is also an immigrant, transplanted in London from Cyprus. Even the tree comes alive as a character. I especially enjoyed Ada's aunt Meryem. She reminds me of someone I know and hold close to my heart.

The ending will especially have readers rethinking how they treat the environment and the trees, in particular. The book is not a thriller or necessarily straight-up romance. However, the writing is so beautiful, the reader will find themselves not wanting to put the book down in order to continue witnessing the gorgeous combination of words and sentences put upon the page. It's a delectable hot fudge sundae of a book, and I would highly recommend to all.


Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for making this available to me. (less)
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Nov 11, 2021Janelle rated it it was amazing
Shelves: netgalley, 2021
A beautiful book about so much, love, identity, trauma, memory and loss, friendship, migration, difference, food, nature, history, family, and much more.
Alternate chapters are narrated by a fig tree! And it works. The author tells the history of Cyprus using this tree and a family, Kostas a Greek Cypriot who falls in love with Defne, a Turkish Cypriot and their daughter Ada, living in London. Recently widowed, the novel begins with Kostas burying his fig tree in the garden to protect it from a storm and the winter. Ada at the same time has a traumatic moment at school. She’s an intriguing character, a teenager trying to come to terms with the death of her mother and the history of her family and the island she hasn’t been to. Her aunt Meryem visits and she is full of proverbial wisdom, many of them are great fun. So while there is much sadness in this novel there is also humour and tenderness. It is well written and constructed, revealing the traumatic and violent history of Cyprus that has probably been forgotten.

“If you weep for all the sorrows in this world, in the end you will have no eyes.”
(less)
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Apr 09, 2022Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer rated it liked it
Shelves: 2022-womens-prize-longlist, 2022, 2022-womens-prize-shortlist
This review contains a Twigger warning.

I read this book due to its longlisting for the 2022 Women’s Prize for which it is now shortlisted.

I had previously received an ARC of the book ahead of its publication in August 2021 - I confess I had requested the book as part of reading books tipped to be longlisted for the Booker Prize, struggled with an element of the novel and decided only to revisit it if and when it received a prize listing.

The element I struggled with was that a very large part of the book is narrated by a fig tree (hence my warning).

Returning to the 2022 Women’s Prize - the longlist this year was a surprising one, missing out many books heavily tipped to appear, and also a weaker than normal one as it was light on the usual Women’s Prize inclusion of a number of very literary books.

The list also stood out for an unusual preponderance of three types of book: Books which are Young Adult not just in their protagonists but also their writing style; Fantasy/Magic Realism - and particularly ghost stories; and non-Human narrators. And interestingly this book sits at the intersection of all these tendencies.

The book takes place over two main timelines (which also exploring crucial points in between): 1974 Cyprus (about to be racked by coup/civil war, invasion and war crimes - something which of course adds an accidental topicality to the book) and late 2010s North London (plus an exploration of a crucial point between).

In 1974 in a rather clichéd plot two a sensitive (and plant/animal loving) Greek boy Kostas and a more down to earth Turkish girl Defne, conduct a tentative forbidden romance - a romance which to add additional cliché takes place in an atmospheric and famous tavern (at one stage we are even given the menu) marked for both the fig tree which dominates its interior and its owners (two men - of course one Greek, one Turkish and of course in a doubly forbidden relationship).

In 2010 North London (where far too many literary novels are set) - their daughter Ada (Island), now without her mother (who died due to an accidental mix of alcohol and pills) and increasingly starting to be distanced from her eccentric father (now a biologist and researcher) suddenly screams for a full minute in her school history class. This incident and the visit of her newly divorced and mother’s sister (estranged for many years from Kostas/Defne due to their transgressive relationship - but now free to visit after the death of her parents) causes Ada to revisit the past of her parents and on how she may have inherited their trauma.

And an intermediate phase we revisit Cyprus in the early 2000s, as Kostas visits Cyprus for the first time since he was made to go and live in London in 1974, and deliberately engineers a meeting with Defne (with who he lost all contact in involuntary exile) and the two rekindle their relationship against a background of Defne’s harrowing work as a foresnic archaeologist with the (real-life) Committee for Missing Persons - trying to bring reconciliation and closure by finding buried bodies.

But - and it is a very big but, alternate chapters of the book in all three timelines are narrated in first person by the fig tree that was originally in the tavern and which was transplanted (as a cutting) by Kostas to London when he and Defne moved there. And the fig tree relies (particularly in the intermediate timeline) on a mosquito and some ants as an unlikely and rather convenient source of information.

And there are a number of issues with this choice (besides the obvious one of its slight ludicrousness).

Firstly, there seems to be a contradiction at the heart of the choice which then reflects in the narrative voice. I feel that the author is simultaneously setting out and exploring the world of trees and their root systems (in a way which I suspect is now rather over familiar to active readers of non-fiction writers such as Merlin Sheldrake and Peter Wohlleben; and of the many literary fiction books they have inspired); while also trying to write a fairly conventional story of human conflict, love and social interactions - I would contrast this say the writing of Richard Powers in “Overstory” which emphasises and prioritises nature over humanity (incidentally we are told that Kostas does the same but don’t necessarily see it). And this tension reflects in the rather confused voice of a tree which seems to spend much of its time pointing out the differences between trees (and other flora and fauna) and humans, while also adopting an extremely anthromorphic set of expressions, feelings and emotions.

Secondly the Tree appears to have access to Wikipedia but not to a story telling imagination - so that large parts of what the Tree recounts (not just about Flora and Fauna but even more glaringly about the history of Cyprus) feel like a rather clunky factual cut and paste

Thirdly while some of the analogies between tree life and human life work well - for example the idea of hidden trauma, how your hidden roots effect your health and a more complex one about an epigenetic reaction to experienced trauma which then carries down to non-traumatised descendants - even these are often repeated (having both a tree and a tree expert in the book inevitably means both seem keen to explain the same ideas). And some ideas just don’t seem to work - for example one key assertion is about how the cyclicality of arboreal life contrasts with the linearity of human life - which is an interesting one, rather undermined by using tree rings as an example (which are surely an annual record of decades or centuries of linearity).

Ada’s screaming incident is also captured on camera and ends up fuelling a worldwide social media meme and movement which is an interesting idea but one the author seems to completely lose interest in, in a rather anticlimactic ending to the human part of the story. Similarly at two separate points the book flirts with mysticism (both in Cyprus and later England) - in both cases rather fizzling out in the light of the scepticism of Ada and her mother.

However, the tree part of the story does end with a rather nice twist which both reinforces the not-inconsiderable emotional heft of the novel; while also causing one to question some of one’s criticism of the tree’s narrative (albeit second thoughts seem to show that the surprise in the twist is really due to it not really following that logically).

Overall and despite my criticisms this is nevertheless an enjoyable book - with lots of very moving and lyrical writing, a very strong and evocative sense of time and place, and some difficult and unfortunately very resonant for 2022 themes. As a result I would be surprised - and not disappointed - if it did not make the shortlist and not completely shocked if it even won. (less)
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