The Island of Missing Trees

Shafak, Elif

ISBN 10: 0241434998 / ISBN 13: 9780241434994

Published by Viking (an imprint of Penguin Books), New York, 2021

About this Item

First edition thus, hardcover, signed by Shafak on the limitation page, the book has a slight lean to the binding, which has a shallow pull at the title page but remains solid. The book also has mild bumps to the spine ends and cover corners. Overall, a Very Good+ copy in a like, unclipped dust jacket, which has mild bumps to the spine ends and cover corners, and slight rubbing to the covers with a bar code sticker over the ISBN on the back. The jacket is wrapped in Mylar. Seller Inventory # 209681

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Island of Missing Trees

Publisher: Viking (an imprint of Penguin Books), New York

Publication Date: 2021

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good+

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: First Edition Thus.

About this title

Synopsis:

A rich, magical new book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited -- her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.