Author Elif Shafak struggled at first with how to write her new book, The Island of Missing Trees. The story she wanted to tell is about a family from Cyprus, a Mediterranean island that was the center of a conflict in the 1970s, but she didn't want the story to be about tribalism or nationalism. Which is why, Shafak told NPR's Steve Inskeep, much of the story is told from the perspective of a fig tree