The Island of Missing Trees

‘You don’t fall in love in the midst of a civil war, when you are hemmed in by carnage and by hatred on all sides. You run away as fast as your legs can carry your fears, securing basic survival and nothing else. With borrowed wings you take to the sky and soar away into the distance… You don’t fall in love in Cyrus in the summer of 1974. Not here, not now. And yet there they were, the two of them.’

The Island of Missing Trees, by Elif Shafak (the author of The Forty Rules of Love), is a historical fiction book about the conflict in Cyprus between the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots. 

Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, and Defne, a Turkish Cypriot, fall in love amidst the widespread hatred. This novel tugs back and forth in time, from 1974 in Cyprus, to the late 2010s in North London. 

Ada, the teenage British daughter of Kostas and Defne, has never stepped foot in Cyprus. However, following the death of her mother, she is heavy with unanswered questions and the weight of generational trauma. Through this book, Elif Shafak explores whether ignorance can ever truly be bliss.

‘And what about our ancestors – can they, too, continue to exist through us?… Where do you start someone’s story when every life has more than one thread and what we call birth is not the only beginning, nor is death exactly an end?’

Kostas and Defne make the conscious effort to raise Ada without ‘burdening’ her with the facts of their traumatic past. However, this arguably leaves Ada with more issues caused from the confusion that festers within her. 

Despite withholding information about this couple’s difficult past, Ada still suffers from generational trauma. We often look at babies, and nature alike, as blank slates, fresh starts. Although, this may be true at times, where does nurture give and nature take? 

This book is written from the perspective of Ada, Kostas, Defne and their fig tree that they brought with them from Cyprus. The 3rd person voice of the novel is only broken up in the chapters written in first person from the perspective of the trauma- ridden fig tree. These intimate chapters display how the fig tree soaks up all the suffering of the family. 

Unlike the tree, Ada is unable to place the cause of her pain as she hasn’t directly experienced it. Is this true for the rest of us – are we bearing the brunt of problems that we had no idea existed from the generations before us?

‘Did subsequent generations ineluctably start where previous ones had given up, absorbing all of their disappointments and unfulfilled dreams? Was the present moment a mere continuation of the past, every word an afterthought to what has already been said or left unsaid?’

Generational trauma can be both ‘comforting and unsettling’. This novel made me consider whether there can ever be a hopeful element to generational trauma. Perhaps our forefathers’ unfulfilled dreams can create a greater drive, a greater spark within us to do better, where they couldn’t. 

Although this in itself can be a burden and can create pressure to continue a life that is not your own, I think that there can be something beautiful in dreams continuing through a generation of people. Legacies can live on. 

This book does also raise the debate of destiny versus free will. When a multitude of knowledge and experiences are contained in our DNA before our lives have even truly begun, how do we distinguish our own passions and thoughts from those inherited?

‘The path of an inherited trauma is random; you never know who might get it, but someone will. Among children growing up under the same roof, some are affected by it more than others. Have you ever met a pair of siblings who have had more or less the same opportunities, and yet one is more melancholic and reclusive? It happens, sometimes family trauma skips a generation altogether and redoubles its hold on the following one. You may encounter grandchildren who silently shoulder the hurt and sufferings of their grandparents.’

What I find fascinating about this concept of trauma skipping generations is that it will be more difficult to detect this grief when the link is not direct. Particularly with first-generation immigrants who have never stepped foot back home, yet are still affected by the issues there.

The Island of Missing Trees is not for the light-hearted. It raises questions within you that you may not be ready to answer. This novel is about love coexisting with hate, this novel is about lingering sorrow, this novel is about the silent witnesses and non-witnesses of suffering.

‘There are moments in life when everyone has to become a warrior of some kind. If you are a poet, you fight with your words; if you are an artist, you fight with your paintings… But you can’t say, “Sorry I’m a poet, I’ll pass”.’

‘Some day this pain will be useful to you.’