It was a military cemetery, neatly organized with gravel paths running alongside the headstones, so serene and complete in its isolation that it was almost as if nothing existed outside of it. This was the final resting place of British soldiers who had died throughout the Cyprus conflict -- except for the Hindu soldiers, most of whom had been cremated. （この引用部分は Fig Tree が語る、登場人物からすると第三者の文章です。）
［和訳］兵士たちの墓でした。狂いなく見事に真直ぐ延びる砂利を敷き詰めた通路とそれに沿って並ぶ墓石。全区画は静寂に包まれ完全に外の世界からは隔絶されているようです。この墓地にとって外の世界は無視すると決めつけているようです。ここは、あのキプロス紛争の時に命を落とした英国兵士たちの最後の安息の場所なのです。ただし、英国兵士たちの内でもヒンズー教徒であった兵士たちは火葬された為ここに埋葬されてはいません。

On New Year's Eve they had planned a quiet dinner, nothing too complicated, but no dinner could ever be simple when cooked by Meryem. Determined to end a difficult year with a bit of a sweet taste in their mouths, a warm feeling in their bellies, she used every ingredient she could find in the cupboards to prepare a feast for them. As the clocks chimed midnight and fireworks went off outside the windows, Ada let the grown-ups hug her, and she felt their love enfold her, soft but strong like a cloth woven from the fibres of sturdy plants.
（和訳）大晦日の夕食は自宅で、三人だけで静かに食事しようと全員が同意していました。手の込んだことはしないと言っていたのですがメリエムが料理するとなると簡単な夕食で終わることは無かったのです。いろんな辛いことにも耐えた一年を締めくくるのですから、メリエムはみんなに、口には少しばかり甘いものを、お腹には暖かなものを感じさせてあげたいのでした。食品棚に見つかった使えそうなもの全部を取り出してみんなの為にごちそうをと、腕を振るったのでした。夜中 12 時の鐘がなり、窓の外から爆竹の音が轟いてくると、アダは二人の大人に抱き締められることに身を任せました。二人の大人の愛情を全身で感じ取ったのです。それは荒々しくて丈夫な繊維で織られた粗い肌触りの布に包まれるようでした。

He (Lukman Umar) was the last of six children. Life, already hard, became much harder with the Japanese occupation in 1942. More than fifty years later Lukman remembered how in 1943 he and other boys of his age had been made to carry stones from the river for the airport the Japanese were building at Tabing, a few miles north of Padang.
Some years later -- perhaps after the end of the war, though exactly when wasn't clear -- Lukman's father left his family to go and open a piece of forest and turn it, in the immemorial way of Sumatra, into a rice-field. The father didn't return; and though noting was said directly, it is likely that he had started another family. A second marriage, a second family: in Indonesia, as in other Islamic countries, it was a familiar story. The adventure had religious sanction, but the consequences never ended for the two families. It made for a society of half-orphans, in a chain of deprivation and rage: an abandoned child often became an abandoning parent.

［単語帳 "Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary" による］
immemorial: that has existed for longer than people can remember
sanction: official permission or approval for an action or a change
make for something: to help to make something possible 片親で育った人間が大勢いる社会を出現させる

Kostas sat typing away in his study - a former potting shed - his face thrown into sharp relief by the blue light from the computer screen. He had built a bolthole here for himself, his desk piled with documents, books and academic papers. Every now and then he glanced out of the window, allowing his gaze to settle on the garden. Now that Storm Hera was gone, there was something new in the air, the sense of a delicate peace that comes after a ferocious battle. In a few weeks, spring would arrive and he would unearth the fig tree.
（和訳）コスタスは自らの仕事部屋でキーボードを叩き続けています。そこは以前トイレであった離れ小屋を改装したものです。彼の顔はパソコン画面からの青い光に照らされ、くっきりと浮き上がって見えています。彼はこの場所を自分の隠れ家の様に感じていました。机の上には文書の束、本、学術資料が山積みです。度々、手の動きを止めては、この部屋の窓の外に目を遣って庭を興味深く眺めるのです。嵐、ヘラは通り過ぎまた。空気からは新鮮な香りが漂ってきます。激しい戦争の後の静けさ・平和の味わいです。この先、何週間もしない内に春が始まります。春が来れば地面に埋めたイチジクの木を掘り出すのです。

"Shafak is that rare alchemist who can mix grains of tragedy and delight without diminishing the savour of either' (Washington Post)
［和訳］「シャファクは世間で言われるところの『稀なる錬金術師』なのです。シャファクには悲劇と歓喜それぞれの特性、それら双方の本質的特性たる味を、同時に、読み手に体験させることができるのです。双方がもつ深いコクをいささかも減じることなく。