Product Description
The Island of Missing Trees
Author: Elif Shafak
Format: Paperback
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
Pre-Order Elif Shafak's New Novel in One Brief Moment All Eternity Now ***
About the Author
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-seven languages. The author of twenty books, fourteen of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak's previous novel, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, was the UK’s bestselling literary hardback novel of 2025, selling over 500,000 copies. Her work has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, amongst others, and she is currently nominated for ‘Author of the Year’ at the British Book Awards. Elif Shafak was appointed President of the Royal Society of Literature in 2025. Her books have sold several million copies worldwide.
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