Mediterraneanism Meets Global Ethics
A Poetic and Material Analysis of The Island of Missing Trees
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12880958 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Aina Vidal-Pérez (0000-0002-1091-3298, Universitat de les Illes Balears, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Publication date | 2025-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Literature Compass (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1741-4113 • E-ISSN: 1741-4113 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/lic3.70038 |
| OpenAlex | W4417300057 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 14 |
This article delves into discussions around the global novel through a poetic and material analysis of The Island of Missing Trees (2021) by British‐Turkish writer Elif Shafak. Internationally acclaimed, the novel's central plot is a love story set in 1974 Nicosia (Cyprus) between Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, and Defne, a Turkish Cypriot, who secretly meet amidst the political violence of a divided city, against the backdrop of golden beaches, climbing bougainvilleas, and stuffed vine leaves. I argue that the narrative tension between locality and globality mediated by a cosmopolitan writer like Shafak is one of the fundamental strategies for the novel's global legibility, circulation, and reception. First, I analyze its narrative strategies—articulated through multiple points of view (including that of a fig tree), a multiscale narrative construction (temporal, spatial, but also non‐human), and a picturesque production of the local (Cypriot) and the regional (Mediterranean)—to problematize the mechanisms of internationalization in the novel. Second, I question how the novel thematically participates in popular global discourses such as humanitarianism or environmentalism. Finally, I consider the circulation and reception assumptions around the novel in Western English‐language media
Cosmopolitanism · Discernment · Globality · Locality · Narrative · Plot (graphics · Poetry · Politics · Turkish · Contemporary and Historical Greek Studies · Cyprus History, Politics, Society · Turkey's Politics and Society
| Highly cited | No |
|---|