In 1974 Nicosia, teenagers Kostas and Defne meet secretly at a taverna to navigate their forbidden relationship across the Greek-Turkish partition. Decades later in London, their daughter Ada grieves her mother’s death while investigating her family’s silenced history. A central narrative voice belongs to a relocated fig tree growing in Ada’s garden, which survived the civil war and its subsequent environmental destruction. The plot tracks the physical movement of this cutting and the psychological weight of the ethnic violence that forced the couple to flee their Mediterranean home.
Readers interested in the intersection of botany and wartime history will find a detailed study of how trauma translates across generations and species. The book appeals to those seeking a technical look at arboriculture alongside a historical account of the Cyprus conflict. It provides a specific perspective on the ecological costs of human borders and the biological reality of displacement. One walks away with an understanding of how migratory families use natural inheritance to preserve memories that are too painful for verbal transmission.
- Published
- 2021
- Language
- EN
