JCO Book Club

The Island of Missing Trees is a novel shaped by the quiet wisdom of roots and the stubborn hope of branches reaching for light. It unfolds on Cyprus, an island long divided by war and memory, where history breathes through soil, stones, and the secret language of trees. Across this fractured landscape, two young lovers – one Greek Cypriot, one Turkish Cypriot – find each other in the shadow of politics and conflict, their bond a fragile sapling nourished by longing and silence.

Decades later, a single fig tree – witness, survivor, storyteller – carries the memories no one else dares to speak. Through its rings and its clinging scent of sweetness and sorrow, we learn how the past insists on traveling with us, even when we migrate to new lands, even when we believe we have left everything behind.

This is a tale about belonging and exile, about wounds…