The Island of Missing Trees

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022THE 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