The Island of Missing Trees

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2022
A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK
A TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2021

A rich, magical new novel 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. 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.

'What a wonderful read! This book moved me to tears... in the best way. Powerful and poignant' Reese Witherspoon

'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi

'Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann

© Elif Shafak 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critics Review

  • An outstanding work of breathtaking beauty

    Lemn Sissay

  • A writer of important, beautiful, painful, truthful novels

    Marian Keyes

  • Lovely heartbreaker of a novel centered on dark secrets of civil wars & evils of extremism: Cyprus, star-crossed lovers, killed beloveds, damaged kids

    Margaret Atwood on Twitter

  • Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature

    Ian McEwan

  • A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. The Island of Missing Trees is balm for our bruised times

    David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue

  • Simply magnificent, a truly captivating work of immense power and beauty, on the essence of life and its end

    Philippe Sands on '10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World'

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