This week, in Editor's Choice, we review Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees, a haunting novel about generational trauma and the environmental devastation wrought by conflict on the island of Cyprus.

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The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak tells a tale of generational trauma, explores identity and pays homage to the natural world in prose so lyrical it melts into your very spirit. Oscillating between past and present, the narrative is split between the ruminations of a fig tree; the love story of a Greek Cypriot, Kostas, and Turkish Cypriot, Defne, in 1974 Cyprus; and the mourning of the lovers' 16-year-old daughter, Ada Kazantakis, in London in the 2010s after the death of her mother. The story is not told linearly, rather, much like reality, the pieces arrive in distinct moments that eventually coalesce into the truth. The torrid romance of Kostas and Defne reveals the trauma wrought by ethnic strife and colonialism across generations, on humans and on ecosystems throughout the world. Their story humbles the reader, shedding light on our dependency on the planet we inhabit and the consequences of tribal warfare...

Beyond the Book: Colonialism's Ecological Damage in Cyprus

Review and article by Noshin Bokth

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