The Island of Missing Trees

Set on the island of Cyprus, the novel tells the story of Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, and Defne, a Turkish Cypriot, two teenagers who fall in love in 1974 amidst the island's political division. They meet in secret at a taverna, hidden beneath the leaves of a fig tree growing through the roof, which witnesses their hushed meetings and is present when the war breaks out and the teenagers vanish. Decades later, in north London, their sixteen-year-old daughter, Ada Kazantzakis, who has never visited the island, seeks to untangle years of family secrets, separation, and silence. Her only connection to her parents' homeland is a fig tree growing in their back garden. The book explores themes of love, loss, identity, trauma, nature, and renewal, with the unique perspective of the fig tree itself.

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