The island of missing trees

It is 1974 on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite
sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call
home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and
Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret,
hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic,
chilli peppers and wild herbs. This is where one can find the best food
in town, the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to
the place: it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world
outside and its immoderate sorrows.

In the centre of the tavern,
growing through a cavity in the roof, is a fig tree. This tree will
witness their hushed, happy meetings, their silent, surreptitious
departures; and the tree will be there when the war breaks out, when the
capital is reduced to rubble, when the teenagers vanish and break
apart.

Decades later in north London, sixteen-year-old Ada
Kazantzakis has never visited the island where her parents were born.
Desperate for answers, she seeks to untangle years of secrets,
separation and silence. The only connection she has to the land of her
ancestors is a Ficus Carica growing in the back garden of their home.