The Island of Missing Trees

The fig tree is one of the most important entities in the book. It is the object around which the book is centered, structurally and thematically: The sections of the book are named after different parts of a tree; the burying and eventual unburying of the fig tree are important incidents in the book’s storyline; the fig tree even serves as an important character that witnesses numerous things throughout the story’s history and lends its narrative voice to the retelling in multiple chapters.

Symbolically, the fig tree represents numerous things. The tree dates its origins to 1878, the same year the Ottoman Empire concedes the island of Cyprus to the British. This marks the beginning of the “Cyprus problem” in history, which makes up the cultural and historical context of the book. It points to how Kostas’s and Defne’s experiences of conflict is a culmination of events that predates them by multiple generations.

The tree also symbolizes the immigrant experience and the attempt at new beginnings. The 96-year-old version of the tree dies in Cyprus, but Kostas brings a heathy cutting to London, which is replanted and grows into a genetic clone of the original.