The Island of Missing Trees

By Elif Shafak

Her 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.’  A Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot meet beneath the branches of an olive tree and fall in love. Theirs is a story that centers on the olive tree, the most ancient of trees that has seen all of history, and bears witness to the battles between the Greeks and turks of that beautiful island. Shafak is a beautiful writer who never fails to capture my heart – she has endless compassion, is wise and thoughtful and never permits her readers to arrive at easy answers to difficult questions. I have eagerly awaited all of her books since I fist read The Bastards of Istanbul and have never once regretted that eagerness.