“What literature tries to do is to re-humanize people who have been dehumanized … People whose voices we never hear. That’s a big part of my work,” Elif Shafak said, describing the driving force behind her writing, notably The Island of Missing Trees. Born in 1971 in Strasbourg, France, Shafak grew up as a living bridge between Turkish and European worlds. Her keen thirst to bring disenfranchised voices and stories into the light springs to life in The Island of the Missing Trees – this novel, published in 2021, beckons to us all and explains those unseen things.
Tangled Trees
Set in Cyprus, this intrepid story elegantly describes the central theme in the form of fig trees. One can almost hear the buzz of cicadas, the call of voices, and smell the heady scent of garlic and honeysuckle. Released in 2021, the novel explains two storylines: the star-crossed lovers, Kostas and Defne, and the following generation, Ada Kazantzakis, who longs to know the homeland she’s never seen. Ada is Kostas’ daughter, living in London while trying to learn more about her past and her father.
The central meeting place of Kostas and Defne is called The Happy Fig, a taverna operated by sympathetic men who watch the tender, fragile love story unfold. Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, and Defne, a Turkish girl, have no public sphere to celebrate their relationship. The world of 1974 posed two great obstacles for the young couple: the strict rules of Greek Orthodoxy and Islam. Orthodoxy declares the followers of Muhammad betrayers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, while Muslims claim that Christians are infidels.
Missing Roots
According to a literary review, “Shafak isn’t giving us a history lesson, although there’s plenty of it lurking in there. What she tells us about are people’s lives, violently cut short or put under huge strain.” This review offered criticism of The Island of Missing Trees, claiming that the characters‘ backstories are not as fleshed out as thoroughly as they might be. The Island of Missing Trees echoes the tumult of families ripped apart by war and ethic strife, yet the characters’ trauma is only lightly touched.
However, dealing with the story as it unfolds – both in 1974 and 2010 London – helps to keep the narrative moving. The Island of Missing Trees is best explained in the imagery and dialogue. The tangled branches of real trees transform into the loose roots of immigrants, lost love, and those unseen ties that bind us.
The Island of Missing Trees Explained
The Island of Missing Trees delves into the harsh landscape of Cyprus as a fitting background for post-colonial reality. Cyprus was a former British colony and strategic naval base during WWII, adding a crisp, British directness to the existing Greek and Turkish populations. The island received its independence in 1960. Kostas and Defne lost brothers in combat, and their shared loss binds them together in The Island of Missing Trees.
Ada enters the story as she struggles with mental health and the burden of her father’s past. Kostas now lives in London, completely devoted to nature and a cutting from a specific fig tree. Bontany became both his safety net and a way to grieve. Eventually, Ada learns who and what she is, and Kostas returns to Cyprus to find what he lost.
Shafa’s compelling work weaves Ada’s story along with her parents: we mourn Defne’s struggle with mental health and alcoholism, but we rejoice in Kosta’s return home and Ada’s coming to terms with herself. The Island of Missing Trees speaks to what is lost, but found again, in the human heart.
