Check out Priscilla’s upcoming creative writing retreat in Catalonia
I’m a British author who divides her time between Ireland and Catalonia, Spain. I teach creative writing and studied Spanish, Italian and social anthropology at Cambridge University and creative writing at the University of East Anglia.
Born to a Bosnian mother and a Cornish father, I grew up in London, spending my childhood summers in Sarajevo. When war broke out in Bosnia in the former Yugoslavia, I was 19, and my grandparents and most of my mother’s relatives were trapped in Sarajevo under siege. Read more about this here.
I wrote my debut novel Black Butterflies to understand the war that devastated my mother’s hometown from 1992-1996. The starting point was the inspirational story of my great-uncle, Bosnian landscape painter Dobrivoje Beljkašić (1923-2015).
It has been translated into Bosnian by Lejla Džanko (Crni Leptiri, Buybook, Sarajevo, 2023), Italian by Alba Bariffi (Le Farfalle di Sarajevo, Neri Pozza, 2023), Dutch by Inge Kok (Zwarte Vlinders, Meulenhoff, 2024), Slovenian by Andreja Blažić Klemenc (Črni Metulji, Založba Meander, 2024), Catalan by Marc Rubio (Papallones Negres, Edicions del Periscopi, 2025), Spanish by Begoña Prat (Las Mariposas de Sarajevo, Duomo Ediciones, 2025), French by Valérie le Plouhinec (La Saison des Papillons Noirs, Phébus, 2025), Arabic (الفراشات السوداء , Jalsa Publishing House, 2025) and Persian by Mazdak Bolouri (پروانههای سیاه, Bidgol Publishing, 2025). It’s currently being translated into Greek with more translations forthcoming.
I’m represented by the wonderful Sophie Lambert at C&W: sophie.lambert@cwagency.co.uk. Rebecca Gradinger is my US agent at United Talent Agency.
UK: Contact Matt Casbourne, Head of Sales at Duckworth, for sales and publicity: matt@duckworthbooks.com
US: for more information, contact knopfpublicity@penguinrandomhouse.com. For interviews, please contact Elka Roderick at eroderick@penguinrandomhouse.com
Contact me: @priscillamorriswriter; priscilla_morris@hotmail.com
With sincere thanks to the Arts Council in Ireland for a literature bursary award to facilitate writing the next book.
PRISCILLA MORRIS 