BLACK BUTTERFLIES
Black Butterflies (Duckworth, 2022; Knopf, 2024)
Fiction Runner-Up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize 2025; longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2025; a New York Times Best Historical Fiction book 2024; shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023, the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2023, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2023, the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize 2023 and the Nota Bene Prize 2023. A BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, 2023. Indie Fiction Book of the Month, May 2022.
BLACK BUTTERFLIES makes the case for art in times of war. It wrests beauty and hope out of suffering… It is a work of literature that transforms horror and violence into a life force.
Bea Setton, The New York Times
A lyrical, devastating and timely love letter to war-torn Sarajevo. There are moments of shocking brutality set against others of unexpected beauty and resilience. Exquisitely crafted, it pulses with tension: we couldn’t stop turning the pages.
Rachel Joyce, on behalf of the Women’s Prize judges, The Guardian
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
The scent of baklava, the reassuring rustle of forests, streets lulled with folk tales – these are the memories that haunt this tender first novel, a tribute to a martyred Sarajevo… It is a vibrant fresco of the history of this ‘town where everyone loved each other’, and depicts the unbreakable bonds of a community held together by horror. Love flourishes even amid the rubble.
Josephine Carcopino, Le Monde
In PRISCILLA MORRIS’s mesmerizing debut, art serves as both an act of defiance and a balm for survival… MORRIS has continued the long tradition of artists who seek to answer difficult questions through their art, and she has risen to the challenge brilliantly.
Jung Yun, 2025 Fiction Judge for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Read Jung's citation.
This is 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
This stunning debut by PRISCILLA MORRIS paints an unforgettable portrait of an artist and her community under siege in 1990s Sarajevo… This astonishing novel will linger with readers long after the last page. MORRIS’ exceptional storytelling marks her as a writer to watch.
Booklist (starred review)
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.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A compelling debut…Contains episodes of page-turning uncertainty and heartbreaking pathos. A classic cautionary tale of contemporary relevance.
Kirkus (starred review)
A story of art as a connector and community maker… This novel is both devastating and beautiful, infused with a sense of hope.
BookPage
BLACK BUTTERFLIES carefully charts a story of resilience in the face of destruction, fiercely finding beauty in one’s home even in its darkest moments.
Chicago Review of Books
If you want a story of hope persisting through hardship, read BLACK BUTTERFLIES by PRISCILLA MORRIS.
Stylist
A moving, compelling, deeply human novel about love, hope and resilience in a city under siege. Everyone should read this.
Emma Stonex, Author of The Lamplighters
Brilliantly evokes a world slipping, day by day, under the surface of the opaque waters of war. Dark yet starkly beautiful, BLACK BUTTERFLIES is at once a testament to the victims of the Siege of Sarajevo, to the power of art and to MORRIS’s skills as a storyteller.
Aminatta Forna, Author of The Hired Man
A powerful, gripping portrayal. In BLACK BUTTERFLIES, PRISCILLA MORRIS uses beautiful, tightly-calibrated prose and deep empathy to portray the inhabitants of Sarajevo and the novel’s fierce, unforgettable protagonist, Zora, who survives with art in the midst of unexpected love and unfathomable loss.
Aube Rey Lescure, Author of River East, River West
A gripping, heartbreaking yet hopeful tale of human resilience, compassion, and the haunting devastations of war. A book that will stay with you for a long time.
Cecile Pin, Author of Wandering Souls
An astonishingly good debut… Zora’s story broke my heart, and I hope will open the hearts of all those who read it, at a time when history is destined to repeat itself.
Liz Nugent, Author of Strange Sally Diamond
BLACK BUTTERFLIES paints a portrait of a devastating moment in history, but also of one woman’s capacity for beauty and resilience. An intensely evocative and deeply moving debut – I held my breath as I read.
Ruth Gilligan, Author of The Butchers
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, Author of The Strange Adventures of H
Beautifully written and hauntingly evocative, BLACK BUTTERFLIES distils into a single consciousness a nation’s violent trauma and an artist’s sense of hope. Rich and highly accomplished.
Sam Byers, Author of Perfidious Albion
Incredibly affecting writing, superbly researched and beautifully written. It could not be more topical.
Paula McGrath, Author of A History of Running Away
An elegy to the vibrant and inclusive society that was subjected to a murderous assault in 1992. It comes at an apt time because it testifies to the ease and speed with which things can fall apart.
Kevin Sullivan, Author of The Longest Winter
BLACK BUTTERFLIES is incredible, a must-read. There are few novels that stay with you after the final page, 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
ABOUT BLACK BUTTERFLIES AND PRISCILLA
Sarajevo, spring 1992. Each night, nationalist gangs erect barricades, splitting the diverse city into ethnic enclaves; each morning, the weary residents – whether Bosniak, Croat or Serb – push the makeshift barriers aside. Threat hangs heavy in the air.
Zora, an artist and teacher, is focused on the day-to-day: her family, her students, her studio in the old town. But when violence finally spills over, she sees that she must send 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. As the city falls under siege 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.
Priscilla Morris is of Bosnian and Cornish parentage. She grew up in London, spending summers in Sarajevo, and studied at Cambridge University and the University of East Anglia. She teaches creative writing and divides her time between Ireland and Spain. Inspired by real-life accounts of the Siege of Sarajevo (1992–96), Black Butterflies is her debut novel.
Published in the UK by Duckworth in May 2022. Order at bookshop.org.
OUT NOW in the USA and Canada. Published by Knopf, part of Penguin Random House, August 2024. Order at bookshop.org.
BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME, Black Butterflies, abridged by Jill Waters, read by Fenella Woolgar.
Priscilla Morris discusses art, the background of the war and what inspired her to write Black Butterflies
Discussing Black Butterflies in May 2022.
Priscilla Morris and Elif Shafak talk to Paul Boateng: Beyond Conflict: The Role of Libraries in Rebuilding Societies, Hay Festival 2024, Friday 31 May 2024.
Follow on Instagram @priscillamorriswriter
Check out Priscilla’s upcoming creative writing retreat in Catalonia, Spain
Thank you for reading!
PRISCILLA MORRIS 