BY ROGER WATSON

Elif Shafak is a Turkish feminist writer. A contemporary of Turkey’s ‘man of letters’ Orhan Pamuk, and, like Pamuk, persecuted by the present Turkish government, she chooses to live in England. Pamuk, on the other hand, under constant armed guard, chooses to remain in Istanbul. Being an outspoken writer in Turkey is a dangerous business.

The topics covered by Shafak are wide and include semi-historical novels such as The Bastard of Istanbul, love—verging on infatuation—as in The Forty Rules of Love, and The Three Daughters of Eve. She also covered the dark subject of domestic abuse in her much-acclaimed Honour.

Many of her books rely on the style of magical realism and her latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees published in 2022, is one such book. It is also semi-historical with the events leading to the present day in the novel emanating from the partition of the island of Cyprus in 1974. Cyprus is the island of missing trees.

Beginning in contemporary London, the novel revolves around a father and his adolescent daughter, Ada Kazantzakis. The mother of the girl has died recently, the father clearly has some difficulty bringing up his daughter and he invites his late wife’s sister to the house to see if she can help. That line of the story leads to some weird, wonderful and possibly abusive efforts to help the girl to become more like her aunt thinks she ought to be.

Ada is the result of a ‘mixed marriage’. Her father is obviously Greek, but her mother was Turkish and this love across the religious and political divide in Cyprus eventually led them to London. Ada’s aunt is Turkish and Muslim and seems full of superstition while prone to reciting incantations and wearing charms.

The magical realism of the novel is present in the device of alternating chapters. The chapters alternate between those on the narrative about Ada and delving back to the days of partition with chapters on a fig tree which is buried by Ada’s father in the garden at the start of the novel. The fig tree is buried for the winter to protect it from the frost, to be planted properly again the following summer.

These chapters are sometimes told from the perspective of the fig tree and sometimes include conversations between Ada’s father and the tree. However, it soon becomes apparent that he considers the tree to be the living embodiment of his late wife. The magical realism is a figment of his imagination. In due course the main narrative and the magical narrative converge, and the importance of the fig tree is eventually revealed.

The origin of the partition of Cyprus heralds from the attempt by the Greek government to overthrow the then elected government of Archbishop Makarios, a very charismatic but corrupt and sinister person. Turkey used this as an excuse to invade Cyprus and there ensued a bloody clash between Turkish and Greek troops and violence, bloodshed and the settling of old scores between the Turkish and Greek communities. Eventually, peace was restored, and the United Nations divided the Island between the north, controlled by Turkey, and the south controlled by the Greek Cypriots.

It remains divided to this day by the famous ‘green line’ which is a zone—ten miles wide in places—where mainly Greek families were displaced by the war and which remains a ‘no man’s land’, accessible only to military personnel, of deserted businesses and houses. At its narrowest point in Nicosia, the capital of Turkey, it is relatively easy to move between the two sectors.

These things are well known outcomes of the partition of Cyprus. What is less well known is that thousands of people were killed on both sides and remain buried in mass graves. Ada’s mother had been involved in uncovering mass graves and recovering bodies for genetic analysis and identification. This work continues to the present day. It both aids reconciliation and opens old wounds. The latter part of the novel covers some tragic events related to the two (secretly) gay owners of a restaurant, on the site of the original fig tree.

I found The Island of Missing Trees an engaging and informative read. Elif Shafak rarely disappoints, and I can recommend it as a romantic novel and as an insight into relatively recent Mediterranean history.

The Island of Missing Trees is published by Penguin Random House UK.

Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.