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The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
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The Island of Missing Trees

Due to publisher restrictions, this audiobook is unavailable for purchase in your selected country.
Length 11 hours 43 minutes
Language English
Narrators Daphne Kouma & Amira Ghazalla

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Brought to you by Penguin.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2022
A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK
A TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2021

A rich, magical new novel 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. The taverna is the only place that Kostas and Defne can meet in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic and chilli peppers, creeping honeysuckle, and in the centre, growing through a cavity in the roof, a fig tree. The fig tree witnesses their hushed, happy meetings; their silent, surreptitious departures. The fig tree is there, too, when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns - a botanist, looking for native species - looking, really, for Defne. The two lovers return to the taverna to take a clipping from the fig tree and smuggle it into their suitcase, bound for London. Years later, the fig tree in the garden is their daughter Ada's only knowledge of a home she has never visited, as she seeks to untangle years of secrets and silence, and find her place in the world.

The Island of Missing Trees is a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World.

'What a wonderful read! This book moved me to tears... in the best way. Powerful and poignant' Reese Witherspoon

'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi

'Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann

ยฉ Elif Shafak 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-six languages. The author of nineteen books, twelve of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak's last novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was a top ten Sunday Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. There Are Rivers in the Sky is her latest novel.

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Audiobook details

Author:

ISBN:
9780241993026

Length:
11 hours 43 minutes

Language:
English

Publisher:
Penguin Books Ltd

Publication date:

Edition:
Unabridged

Libro.fm rank:
#32,423 Overall

Genre rank:
#3,200 in Fiction - Literary

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The perfect last-minute gift

Audiobook credit bundles can be delivered instantly, given worldwide, and support local bookstores!

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Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

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Reviews

An outstanding work of breathtaking beauty A writer of important, beautiful, painful, truthful novels Lovely heartbreaker of a novel centered on dark secrets of civil wars & evils of extremism: Cyprus, star-crossed lovers, killed beloveds, damaged kids Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. The Island of Missing Trees is balm for our bruised times Simply magnificent, a truly captivating work of immense power and beauty, on the essence of life and its end A rich, sensual novel... This is a novel that gives voice to the invisible, the untouchable, the abused and the damaged, weaving their painful songs into a thing of beauty Elif Shafak's extraordinary 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World is a work of brutal beauty and consummate tenderness One of the best writers in the world today Expand reviews
The perfect last-minute gift Shop credit bundles