Some stories take root even when the world is burning.
In a taverna on a divided island, Greek Cypriot Kostas and Turkish Cypriot Defne fall in love beneath a fig tree that grows through the roof. The tree bears witness as war tears their world apart and the lovers vanish into the chaos. Decades later, a botanist returns to Cyprus, still searching for what he lost.
In London, a young girl named Ada tends a fig tree that connects her to a homeland she has never seen and a history she does not yet understand.
Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees is a luminous, poetic novel about love and loss, nature and memory, and the fragile roots that bind us across generations.
