When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. As the assault deepens 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.

I appreciate how the book was broken into different focus areas but I felt at times was really repetitive and I wasn’t learning anything new. Only when a critical mass of concerned citizens is made aware of the issues raised in this book, can change begin.Black Butterflies is a rare gem of a novel that celebrates kindness amidst horror, without romanticising war in any way. That lends a lot of validity to what would otherwise have seemed as fictional events improbable in real life. Yes, yes, I understand… war time, living in the present, exceptional circumstances, absent spouses, can’t function within normal societal rules,.

He identifies forces that have resulted in "constant battering" of Black neighborhoods, weathering them over time and causing destruction. Though the historical events during the Bosnian War are intriguing and there are certain heartwrenching moments in the book, there is a lack of depth in characterization, particularly the examination of the relationships between the character (especially the relationship between Zora and Mirsad, a bookseller whose romantic relationship with Zora bloomed during the siege). Also, it does not take into account nuance in a lot of the situations it described, so that frustrated me from time to time, but I think that was very intentional in the purpose and style it’s written in. Set in 1992 Sarajevo, Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris is a harrowing (fictional) account of the first year of the Siege as seen from the perspective of fifty- five year old painter and Professor of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts , Zora Kočović, a civilian trapped in the war-torn city that has always been her home.

While things are difficult and there are small obstacles she must face, Zora begins to enjoy the solitude and the chance it gives her to engage in her painting. 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. 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…. I will mention that, while every single chapter made an impact on me as someone living just outside of Baltimore, I especially loved that Brown goes further than merely explaining American apartheid and hyper-segregation and the damage and historical trauma they have caused. The Black Butterfly dissects American apartheid with unflinching precision and poignancy, weaving together fresh historical accounts with undiluted analysis of our present moment.

The symbolism of Zora’s art and the significance of the title “Black Butterflies” against the upheaval and devastation Zora witnesses is of particular significance to this story. He describes forces like neglect, disrespect, gentrification, redlining, subprime lending, hypersegregation, and hyperpolicing. And a timeless entry in Drake’s book from 2015 that I will cherish forever as Robin Williams was one of my absolute favorites and was lost all too soon. Braving the elements and coping with food shortages no electricity, no heat and no water while trying to stay alive amid mortar fire and sniper bullets they also bear witness to the destruction of the city they all love and the lives they built around it.

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. BLACK BUTTERFLIES was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and the Nota Bene Prize.