Elif Shafak is the author of The Island of Missing Trees, which publishes in paperback on April 7 2022.

During the writing, thinking and dreaming of The Island of Missing Trees, I read many books exploring nature, botany, place and environment. I believe we have entered an age in which we do not have the luxury of being disconnected, disengaged, indifferent. We cannot be ‘single-issue people.’ If you care about climate injustice, it means you care about gender injustice. Likewise if you are passionate about gender equality, it means you are also passionate about racial equality—as well as fighting class, regional and digital inequalities. I am fascinated by the kind of writing that connects the dots between seemingly separate worlds: East and West, pessimism and optimism, realism and magic, resistance and melancholy. 

Trees are remarkable and far more sentient than we realise. Both under and above the ground they remain connected in so many fascinating ways. From 'a tree’s perspective' everything is interlinked. We humans tend to assume that we are the centre of the universe, we believe we are superior to all other creatures. We are arrogant like that. I believe we have a lot to learn from trees. 

An important theme in my novel, The Island of Missing Trees, is ‘inherited trauma’: identity, belonging, displacement, war, division, immigration. I am also interested in the subtle tension between memory and amnesia. Trees help me to re-think the concept of roots in a new and fresh way. What does it mean to be rooted, uprooted, deracinated, exiled? What does it mean to be a ‘rootless cosmopolitan’? And can we find new roots inside art and literature, and build a home for ourselves in Storyland? 

Several books accompanied me as I was writing: