"From the captivating prose and magnetic writing, to the stunning imagery, everything about The Island of Missing Trees is incredibly enchanting… Most of all, I love the message at heart: humanity and nature are interwoven and despite our differences, there is far more that unites us."
—Reese Witherspoon
"Lovely heartbreaker of a novel centered on dark secrets of civil wars & evils of extremism: Cyprus, star-crossed lovers, killed beloveds, damaged kids. Uprootings. (One narrator is a fig tree!)"
—Margaret Atwood, via Twitter (P.s Margaret Atwood wants to be quoted in full, saying it was on Twitter)
“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.”
—David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue
“I read The Island of Missing Trees in two sittings, marking sen- tences and moments as I went, drawn on and gripped by this strange and beautiful story, in which voices both human and arboreal branch toward and entwine with one another. Trees, here, grow through the lives of these unforgettable characters, becoming bearers of memory, makers of metaphor, and wit- nesses to atrocity. Shafak has written a brilliant novel––one that rings with her characteristic compassion for the overlooked and the under-loved, for those whom history has exiled, excluded, or separated. I know it will move many readers around the world, as it moved me.”
—Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland
“This is an enchanting, compassionate, and wise novel, and story- telling at its most sublime. Though rooted in bloody atrocity, it sings to all the senses.”
—Polly Samson, author of A Theater for Dreamers
“A wonderfully transporting and magical novel that is, at the same time, revelatory about recent history and the natural world and quietly profound.”
—William Boyd, author of Trio
“Elif Shafak has written an excruciatingly tender love story that transcends cultures, generations and, most remarkably, species. Once under the dappled shade of The Island of Missing Trees, I found myself grieving its inevitable end as one might a dear friend, and scheming ways to make it last. A transformational book about our arboreal relatives, to be cherished and savored.”
—Naomi Klein, author of On Fire
“A beautiful and magical tale infused with love. Stunning.”
—Ruth Jones, author of Us Three
“At once intimate in tone and ambitious in its reach, The Island of Missing Trees is a novel that moves with the urgency of a mystery as it uncovers the story of lovers divided first by war and then, after they are reunited and have a child, by that same war’s endur- ing psychic wounds. But there is tenderness and humor in this tale, too, and the intense readerly pleasures of a narrative that dances from the insights of ecological science to Greek myth and finally to their surprising merger in what might be called— natural magic.”
—Siri Hustvedt, author of Memories of the Future
“Shafak makes a new home for us in words.”
—Colum McCann
“One of the best writers in the world today.”
—Hanif Kureishi
“A work of brutal beauty and consummate tenderness.”
—Simon Schama, on 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
'An outstanding work of breathtaking beauty'
—Lemn Sissay
'A writer of important, beautiful, painful, truthful novels'
—Marian Keyes
"A beautiful novel about the broken island of Cyprus and its wounded and scarred inhabitants, The Island of Missing Trees teaches us that brokenness can only be healed by love."
—Bernhard Schlink
"The Island of Missing Trees is a magical masterpiece, a searing tale of love, loss and redemption across times and seas. This is a beautiful book that will entrance your imagination and capture your soul. Ada and her family and her wondrous tree will pull you in and you will never forget them, this book of families and secrets, of suffering and forgiveness, griefs buried deep underground, faith and the power of love. A novel of heart stopping force. Elif Shafak has done it again with this brilliant novel of the secrets of hearts, the history of Cyprus and the beauty of memory. Truly full of miracles. Give her the Nobel prize already!"
—Kate Williams