Fiction The Island of Missing Trees

Elif Shafak: Viking, $33

A fig tree in a taverna on the island of Cyprus is a watchful observer in this sad and lovely story that begins in the tumult of 1974 when the Turks invaded the island and the Greek military junta collapsed. The tree witnesses the young love between Kostas who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, a Turkish Muslim girl, as they meet in secret at the taverna with the blessing of its owners, also mixed race, and gay. Decades later in London young Ada, the teenaged daughter of Defne and Kostas, seeks the truth about the violent past that her parents won’t discuss. Defne became part of a human rights archaeological group while Kostas cares for his garden, with a fig grown from a cutting from the taverna tree. PENELOPE DEBELLE