The island of missing trees

Resource Information

The work The island of missing trees represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Randwick City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The island of missing trees

Statement of responsibility

Elif Shafak

Creator

• Shafak, Elif, 1971-

Author

• Shafak, Elif, 1971-

Subject

• Fig -- Fiction
• First loves -- Fiction
• Identity (Psychology) -- Fiction
• Large print books
• Belonging (Social psychology) -- Fiction
• Love -- Fiction
• London (England) -- Fiction
• Cyprus -- History -- Cyprus Crisis, 1974- -- Fiction

Genre

• Large print books
• Fiction

Language

eng

Summary

It is 1974 on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic, chilli peppers and wild herbs. This is where one can find the best food in town, the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to the place - it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world outside and its immoderate sorrows. In the centre of the tavern, growing through a cavity in the roof, is a fig tree. This tree will witness their hushed, happy meetings, their silent, surreptitious departures; and the tree will be there when the war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to rubble, when the teenagers vanish and break apart. Decades later in north London, 16-year-old Ada Kazantzakis has never visited the island where her parents were born. Desperate for answers, she seeks to untangle years of secrets, separation and silence. The only connection she has to the land of her ancestors is a Ficus Carica growing in the back garden of their home

Cataloging source

DLC

Index

no index present

Literary form

fiction

Target audience

adult