Published in 2022
256 pages
Priscilla Morris is of Yugoslav and English parentage. She grew up in London, spending summers in Sarajevo, and studied at Cambridge University and the University of East Anglia, where she gained her PhD in Creative Writing. She now teaches at University College Dublin, and lives between Ireland and Spain. Black Butterflies, her debut novel, has been long listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023 and the Authors’ Club First Novel Award. It was Indie Fiction Book of the Month in May 2022. It tells one woman’s war story of disintegration, resilience and hope; the siege of Sarajevo as seen through the eyes of artist and teacher Zora Kocovic.
What is this book about?
Sarajevo, spring 1992. Each night, nationalist gangs erect barricades, splitting the diverse city into ethnic enclaves; each morning, the residents – whether Muslim, Croat or Serb – push the makeshift barriers aside.
When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. Reluctant to believe that hostilities will last more than a handful of weeks, she stays behind while the city falls under siege. As the assault deepens and everything they love is laid to waste, black ashes floating over the rooftops, Zora and her friends are forced to rebuild themselves, over and over. Theirs is a breathtaking story of disintegration, resilience and hope.
