Black Butterflies – Priscilla Morris

READ FOR WOMEN’S PRIZE

A true account of life for citizens during the Seige of Sarajevo told via the main character Zora, a 55 year old artist and teacher. When tensions flare she sends her family to safety never thinking things will become what they do.

● I read this in one sitting and the encroachment of the war on the life of Zora was challenging to absorb. As I sat in my warm cozy home with an apple pie being cooked in the oven, I had a strong sense of gratitude, but also guilt, for the life I have. 

The author convincingly showed the reader the almost gentle, incremental changes to life for Sarajevo residents, interspersed with more horrifying impactful events. It is hard at times when watching events on the television news to get a true sense of the life in a war zone as often it’s conveyed to us in a very broad way. 

This novel very successfully showed us the life of just one individual and how she was affected. This helped me connect and understand this conflict in Sarajevo that I had previously been unable to do. – Suzy

‘These have been falling all over the city for days now, as far out as the airport and Ilidža. Do you know what people are calling them?’
‘No.’
‘Black butterflies,’ he says softly. He peers at the scorched page as if trying to read it, then carefully places it in his breast pocket. ‘Burnt fragments of poetry and art catching in people’s hair.’

● If you’d asked me about Sarajevo before last week I would have had to admit I knew nothing about the early 90s conflict. However, after reading Black Butterflies I feel informed and emotionally connected to the Siege of Sarajevo. 

This book details one woman’s determination to stay in her home city, to go to work, to cook dinner, to paint, to chat with her neighbours despite bombs blowing off sides of her apartment block, dismembered body parts being snatched by starving dogs in the street, and young men with guns demanding to know if she is Serb, Muslim or Croat.

The story is compelling and effective, told from one person’s experience, which it turns out is based on true accounts of this time and place. At first, when Zora is trying to persuade squatters to leave her mother’s uninhabited apartment, I thought the prose was too basic, not layered and nuanced enough, but actually the style is gritty and softly poignant and that suits the brutal honesty of war. And besides, who has the capacity for pomp and fluff when they are trying to catch a pigeon to break days of starvation and dehydration.

I read the book quickly, and when I wasn’t reading it I was thinking about Zora and worrying about her. A book that many people would enjoy. Highly recommended. – Rachel

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Published 2022
Duckworth Books
271 pages