Helpful Score: 1
This is such a beautiful story, a tale of love, war, and generations. It's the story of Kostas and Defne, in the 1970's, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, who meet and fall in love. In Cyprus this is a huge problem. The Greeks in Cyprus and the Turks in Cyprus are at war with each other. There's a fence with UN peacekeepers guarding the dividing line. But young lovers being what they are, the two defy everything they know and continue to meet at a taverna on the island. A fig tree grows up through the middle of the taverna and actually narrates parts of the story. In fact, some of what the fig tree tells us are things we couldn't learn any other way and are some of the most poignant parts of the story. In a few cases I skimmed those sections, but mostly not. Interspersed with the older story, we get the story of Ada, the daughter of Kostas and Defne, who is a teenager in London in the 2010's. She is dealing with different issues than her parents did, but she is also in need of some context, some family history, that her parents chose not to disclose. Her visiting aunt provides this information. I learned some history of Cyprus that I didn't already know, and I really enjoyed the sensitivity and beauty with which the author told the story. This story reminded me a bit of another beautiful love story that takes place before and after the dividing of the city of Jerusalem: About the Night by Anat Talshir.
