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Tim O'Brien

972. Elif Shafak - The Island Of Missing Trees


This is a wonderful book.

Set mainly in Cyprus in the mid-1970s when the country was ripped apart by the Greek/Cypriot civil war, it centres around one, or possibly two Greek/Cypriot romances in Nicosia. But there are two narrators, one - unusually a fig tree - who is wonderfully characterised and plays a key narrative role.

Although a lot of it takes place in London 30 years later where the lovers, one now dead have fled to.

Far too much in it to summarise in a few sentences, but wonderful. I much prefer her 20th century novels to those set in medieval Istanbul.


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