SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2023

SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2023

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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.

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.  

Praise for Black Butterflies

‘It reads like a straight telling of one woman’s experience and  feels totally authentic? Along with human kindness,  there is a quiet emphasis on the power of art:  Zora’s paintings, like the existence of this book, are testimony to the way that wars come and go but art goes on forever’ The Sunday Times

‘An intensely evocative and deeply moving debut  – I held my breath as I read’  Ruth Gilligan, RSL  Ondaatje Prize-winning author of  The Butchers

‘Beautifully written and  hauntingly evocative,  Black Butterflies  distils into a single consciousness a nation’s violent trauma and an artist’s sense of hope. Priscilla Morris has crafted a  rich and highly accomplished debut‘ Sam Byers, author of  Perfidious Albion

‘In this compelling and convincing debut novel, Morris brilliantly evokes a world slipping, day by day, under the surface of the opaque waters of war. Dark and yet starkly beautiful,  Black Butterflies  is a narrative of how violence scars the soul of a city and its inhabitants. It is at once a testament to the victims and survivors of the Siege of Sarajevo, to the power of art and to Morris’s skills as a storyteller, all the more keenly felt for the subtlety with which they are deployed’ Aminatta Forna, author of  Happiness

‘Black Butterflies  is  incredible, a must-read. There are few novels that stay with you after the final page is read, but this is one. Brutal yet also uplifting,  immersive  and real, it shows what the human spirit is capable of’ Karen Angelico, author of  Everything We Are

‘An astonishingly good debut, chronicling one of the darkest times in global history. It reads so authentically that I might assume it was a book in translation, albeit by an excellent translator. Like food and fuel in the Siege of Sarajevo, no word is wasted. Zora’s story broke my heart, and I hope it will open the hearts of all those who read it to refugees, at a time when history is destined to repeat itself’ Liz Nugent, author of Our Little Cruelties

‘Black Butterflies is an elegy to the vibrant and inclusive society…  This novel comes at an apt time, not just because it marks the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the Siege of Sarajevo, but because it testifies to the ease and speed with which things can fall apart’ Kevin Sullivan, author of The Longest Winter