Black Butterflies

March 1, 2024

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, and several others, Morris's debut is set in Sarajevo in the early '90s. Having sent her family to England, teacher and artist Zora continues to live in the city, which soon is besieged. Somehow, she and her friends find the strength to endure. Prepub Alert.

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Starred review from June 10, 2024
Bosnian British author Morris debuts with the stirring story of a community’s heroic efforts to maintain its humanity during the siege of Sarajevo. In spring 1992, as sectarian tensions boil over, Zora, a 55-year-old artist of Serbian descent, chooses to stay behind while her husband and mother flee to London. Zora and her Catholic and Muslim neighbors underestimate the risk they face, downplaying the barricades set up by militiamen intent on carving the city into nationalist enclaves, until one night a Serbian shell slams into their building. Life in the city descends into previously unimaginable depths of horror as snipers take aim at civilians, sever power and telephone lines, and choke off exit points, stranding a defenseless population as winter looms. The embattled residents of Zora’s building band together, resisting degradation through their commitment to art and friendship. For her part, Zora opens her doors to neighbors, converts her apartment into a studio, and gives painting lessons. Morris’s prose vibrates with love for the singular city, dotted with Hapsburg spires, Islamic arches, and the onion domes of Serbian Orthodox churches; and for its residents, who, withered and starved, cling tenaciously to the ideal of a multiethnic metropolis. The world she crafts is perfectly rendered, and it amounts to a poignant love letter to Sarajevo and to the human spirit. This one is tough to shake.

Starred review from July 1, 2024
Inspired by family stories, this stunning debut from Priscilla Morris paints an unforgettable portrait of an artist and her community under siege in 1990s Sarajevo. Shortlisted for several awards, including the Women's Prize for Fiction, the novel follows Zora Kočovic, a "painter of bridges," who loves her multicultural city and refuses to believe growing political tension will ever break into violence. Even as snipers appear on rooftops, streets are blockaded, and bombs fall from the sky, she struggles to reconcile the Sarajevo she knows with reality. She stays behind while her husband and mother flee, experiencing an artistic revival now that she only has herself to care for. But as the seasons change, the siege intensifies, and Zora's disbelief transforms into horror. Now, to stay sane, she must believe that "the war and Sarajevo are all there is." Cut off from the outside world with little food, water, or electricity, Zora and her neighbors rely on each other to survive. Their resilience in the face of brutality is moving; the bridges they have built between Muslim, Croat, and Serb hold fast. This astonishing novel will linger with readers long after the last page. Morris' exceptional storytelling marks her as a writer to watch.

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Starred review from September 15, 2024
The human costs of the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s are recounted in a compelling debut. Zora, a 55-year-old painter and art instructor, lives a busy life in Sarajevo with her older husband, Franjo. When, during the early days of the partisan conflict, the family's equanimity is upset by squatters trying to take possession of Zora's mother's apartment, Zora and Franjo decide that he will accompany her mother on an earlier-than-planned visit to their daughter and son-in-law (and beloved granddaughter) in England. Unable to believe or comprehend that the military action beginning to envelope the city will last for very long, Zora stays behind to watch the family's properties and continue her work. Over the course of the following year, Zora struggles to survive as battling factions fight for control of a city that had previously been marked by the calm cohabitation of residents of various nationalities and religions. As residents of her apartment building band together in mutual support after the city loses telephone, electric, and water services, Zora resorts to desperate means to survive the quickly developing brutal circumstances. Faced with no way to escape the freezing weather, dwindling food supplies, and the constant danger of bombardment, Zora finds her lifelong artistic endeavors curtailed. Based on two episodes in her family's history during the siege, Morris' account of finding strength in human connection and artistic creation illustrates the cultural, social, and human damage caused by the internecine Balkan conflict. The chronicle of Zora's ordeal, while sobering, contains episodes of page-turning uncertainty and heartbreaking pathos. A classic cautionary tale of contemporary relevance.

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