2023 Authors' Club Best First Novel Award (nominee)
2023 Women's Prize For Fiction (nominee)
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILBUR SMITH PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2023
––––––––––––
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
‘Thoughtful and atmospheric debut... A reflective novel about dark times that tells us life goes on, love stories develop, humanity remains in the most inhumane of times’ Irish Independent
‘Tale of kinship and survival... Informed by detailed research... showing how societies – and individual citizens – can indeed slide from safety to siege' TLS
'If you want a story of hope persisting through hardship, read Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris' Stylist
'A lyrical, devastating and timely love letter to war-torn Sarajevo... Exquisitely crafted, it pulses with tension' Rachel Joyce, Guardian
‘A moving, compelling, deeply human novel about love, hope and resilience in a city under siege. Everyone should read it’ Emma Stonex, Bestselling Author of The Lamplighters
'An astonishingly good debut' Liz Nugent, author of Our Little Cruelties
’Intensely evocative and deeply moving… I held my breath as a I read’ Ruth Gilligan, RLS Ondaatje Prize-Winning Author of The Butchers
Genre: Literary Fiction
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILBUR SMITH PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2023
––––––––––––
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
‘Thoughtful and atmospheric debut... A reflective novel about dark times that tells us life goes on, love stories develop, humanity remains in the most inhumane of times’ Irish Independent
‘Tale of kinship and survival... Informed by detailed research... showing how societies – and individual citizens – can indeed slide from safety to siege' TLS
'If you want a story of hope persisting through hardship, read Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris' Stylist
'A lyrical, devastating and timely love letter to war-torn Sarajevo... Exquisitely crafted, it pulses with tension' Rachel Joyce, Guardian
‘A moving, compelling, deeply human novel about love, hope and resilience in a city under siege. Everyone should read it’ Emma Stonex, Bestselling Author of The Lamplighters
'An astonishingly good debut' Liz Nugent, author of Our Little Cruelties
’Intensely evocative and deeply moving… I held my breath as a I read’ Ruth Gilligan, RLS Ondaatje Prize-Winning Author of The Butchers
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Immersive, incredible, a must-read." - Karen Angelico
"War does not come suddenly: it creeps. Familiar daily life collapses by degrees - first the phone is cut off, then the electricity, finally the water, and through Zora we begin to experience life in a modern city under siege. With her we understand the fear, the anger and the shame of war, but also the resilience, the kindness and creativity of people. Like Zora we find ourselves disbelieving and baffled at the collapse of the world she knows, and with her we discover who she really is. The best contemporary novel I have read for a long while and also chillingly resonant with the scenes unfolding in Ukraine, Black Butterflies is a book for our time." - Sarah Burton
"Beautifully written and hauntingly evocative." - Sam Byers
"Dark and yet starkly beautiful." - Aminatta Forna
"Intensely evocative and deeply moving... I held my breath as a I read." - Ruth Gilligan
"An astonishingly good debut, chronicling one of the darkest times in global history. Zora's story broke my heart, and I hope will open the hearts of all those who read it to refugees. We live in a time when history is destined to repeat itself." - Liz Nugent
"Moving, compelling, deeply human." - Emma Stonex
"Black Butterflies is an elegy to the vibrant and inclusive society that was subjected to a murderous assault in 1992. But it is more than this: without sentimentality, it examines political and philosophical questions that come abruptly to the fore when the inhabitants of a modern city are starved and shot. 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
"War does not come suddenly: it creeps. Familiar daily life collapses by degrees - first the phone is cut off, then the electricity, finally the water, and through Zora we begin to experience life in a modern city under siege. With her we understand the fear, the anger and the shame of war, but also the resilience, the kindness and creativity of people. Like Zora we find ourselves disbelieving and baffled at the collapse of the world she knows, and with her we discover who she really is. The best contemporary novel I have read for a long while and also chillingly resonant with the scenes unfolding in Ukraine, Black Butterflies is a book for our time." - Sarah Burton
"Beautifully written and hauntingly evocative." - Sam Byers
"Dark and yet starkly beautiful." - Aminatta Forna
"Intensely evocative and deeply moving... I held my breath as a I read." - Ruth Gilligan
"An astonishingly good debut, chronicling one of the darkest times in global history. Zora's story broke my heart, and I hope will open the hearts of all those who read it to refugees. We live in a time when history is destined to repeat itself." - Liz Nugent
"Moving, compelling, deeply human." - Emma Stonex
"Black Butterflies is an elegy to the vibrant and inclusive society that was subjected to a murderous assault in 1992. But it is more than this: without sentimentality, it examines political and philosophical questions that come abruptly to the fore when the inhabitants of a modern city are starved and shot. 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
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Used availability for Priscilla Morris's Black Butterflies