I feel Priscilla Morris is showing the reader that art, and in this instance the creative art form of painting, the painter’s view of the world in all its vibrant colors cannot be extinguished by the hatred and terror of war. However, I wanted a bit more from the characterization. Zora’s strength, resilience, and love for her family and her art were on full display, but I wish we had seen more of the nuances of her character. I also wanted more from the side characters. The ending also felt a bit abrupt. I get that in the horrors of war some threads will never be tied up fully, but it was a bit too open-ended for my taste. This book also includes one of my least favorite tropes (an affair), and the fallout of that was never examined in any real depth.

In 2019, when then president Donald Trump called Baltimore “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” everyone intrinsically knew he wasn’t referring to actual rats and rodents. The illiberal euphemisms were crystal clear. Such is the nature of bigotry in the 21st century, it manifests itself under the guise of “plausible deniability.” Because I read the audiobook edition I wasn't able to read the Author's Note, but I found this article that explains how the novel relates to the author's family. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo... However, it was more of the 10,000-foot view of how various systems work together to create the current mess and what it would take to solve it.I read this as a consequence of the book’s shortlisting for the Women’s Prize for Literature, 2023. The Bosnian conflict of the early to mid 90’s was the first war I was conscious of. There was a lot of graphic media content and there are still images which crop up in my mind now and then. Although I don’t actively seek out literature about this topic, I do like it when i come across one. There’s a new category here now: the good Serb, i.e. the Serb who is not a nationalist, who does not want to divide the country, to ethnically cleanse. I’m constantly having to reassure people that I’m a good Serb. It’s driving me insane.” I wasn’t much familiar with the details of these events except for a skeletal knowledge of the war having taken place. So I found myself a little lost at times in understanding the geography and the politics of the region. I also didn’t understand what issue the war began over. ( Then again, one of the characters says that even they fail to understand why the war started in the first place. So I guess there’s no easy answer to this question.) I would have appreciated a brief note at the end on the facts behind the cause of the war and the political climate at the time, just like the facts behind the ethnic groups were clarified in the author’s note. The book is marked as literary fiction but it is more of a commercial historical fiction. This didn’t make any difference to me this time but to those who expect a book to cater to its advertised genre, this could be a minor problem.

Have you ever heard of such a thing? A human chain to rescue books. A moment of coming together, of resistance. But what good did it do? They say almost two million documents burnt in there. First editions, rare manuscripts, land records, newspaper archives. Our heritage destroyed in a night. This is the third book in my quest to read all of the shortlisted books for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction.This book will be published on the 30th anniversary of the Siege of Sarajevo. It’s an informative novel allowing readers to develop compassion for refugees and those who seek asylum today. There is a strong underlying theme of bridges, which is so ironic in a war story. Zora’s specialty is painting bridges. Her latest artwork is set around one of the main bridges of the city. Some folk stories within the narrative are set around bridges. And yet, all the bridges between Sarajevo and the outside world have been destroyed by the war, as have the internal metaphorical bridges between the different ethnic groups. The author has researched her book well and it shows in the detailed and precise penning of incidents and feelings. The best-selling look at how American cities can promote racial equity, end redlining, and reverse the damaging health- and wealth-related effects of segregation. Zora Kočović is a professor of art at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University in Sarajevo, where she lives with her husband Franjo, a former journalist and eighty-three-year-old mother, who spends winters at their flat. Sarajevo is a city Zora knows and loves deeply, so much so, that she can’t envision living anywhere else:

The story starts with an element of denial which is also common in the World War11 stories I’ve read. Citizens can’t imagine circumstances could get worse, that the rumors are true, that the occupying force would really threaten lives or cause destruction or take away freedoms or imprison responsible citizens. I think most of us felt a bit of denial early in the Pandemic. This will be over in two weeks. It couldn’t possibly get worse or last for years. It’s human nature to deny that the worst could happen. We see this situation in Ukraine today. Before the Russian invasion, I saw an interview with some Ukrainian citizens and they reported that they were not concerned and planned to continue on with their normal activities…..they are threats we have heard and lived with for years and we’re not worried they said. Drawing on her own family history, Morris has crafted an absorbing story set in Sarajevo in 1992, the first year of the Bosnian War. Zora, a middle-aged painter, has sent her husband, Franjo, and elderly mother off to England to stay with her daughter, Dubravka, confident that she’ll see out the fighting in the safety of their flat and welcome them home in no time. But things rapidly get much worse than she is prepared for. Phone lines are cut off, then the water, then the electricity. “ We’re all refugees now, Zora writes to Franjo. We spend our days waiting for water, for bread, for humanitarian handouts: beggars in our own city.” In her twenties, when she returned home from her six years in Paris and Belgrade, she realised she couldn't live anywhere else. And now, she wants to stay in the city she loves as it's shaken, to see things through. In a Nutshell: An enlightening and traumatising fictional account of a war I wasn’t much aware of – the Bosnian war of the early 1990s. Well-researched, well-written, bitter-sweet.War couldn’t happen here in Sarajevo. Not here where everyone loved each other, she’d told herself with the simplicity of a child.” The book provides a helpful tool for public affairs educators seeking to incorporate discussions of race into the classroom and steps to connect public administration theories of performance, budgeting, and management into a hands-on analysis of cities. It details a process to learn both about spatial inequity and to implement the next steps toward the remediation of historical trauma.

Priscilla Morris’ writing is serviceable but the book excels at created an emotive atmosphere. The reader will feel Zora’s pain and pleasure when finding ways to survive and her eventual bid for freedom. I love teaching as well as writing and teach creative writing at University College Dublin. I have a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and read Social Anthropology at Cambridge University.

Art is also an important thread of the book. This is what Zora does and also really the way she expresses her love for the city and also her emotions towards it. Initially we see her painting its bridges and landscapes—and later the destruction and fires that take over the city. Art also ends up offering her solace, when she feels lost, for her neighbours sending their little daughter Una for lessons gives her (in fact them both) something to look forward to. This is all pleasant enough but it doesn’t stir the blood. Ironically I rarely felt any visceral sense of the fear that would have been prevalent as the city ran out of supplies. The number of fictionalised stories or historical accounts of siege is many and longstanding. From Troy to Stalingrad, and Ukraine, the subject is endlessly interesting and horrifying. The reader cannot help but be transported to the setting and to put yourself in that situation.