SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE 2023

SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2023

SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2023

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE 2023

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SARAJEVO. SPRING 1992.

Each night, nationalist gangs erect barricades, splitting the diverse city into ethnic enclaves; each morning, the residents – whether Muslim, Croat or Serb – push the makeshift barriers aside.

When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends 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 while the city falls under siege. 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. Theirs is a breathtaking story of disintegration, resilience and hope.

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**PRAISE FOR BLACK BUTTERFLIES**

'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

‘Thoughtful and atmospheric debut... 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

‘Tale of kinship and survival... Informed by detailed research... showing how societies – and individual citizens – can indeed slide from safety to siege'
TLS

'If you want a story of hope persisting through hardship, read Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris'
STYLIST

'A lyrical, devastating and timely love letter to war-torn Sarajevo... Exquisitely crafted, it pulses with tension' RACHEL JOYCE, The Guardian

‘A moving, compelling, deeply human novel about love, hope and resilience in a city under siege. Everyone should read it’
EMMA STONEX, bestselling author of The Lamplighters

'An astonishingly good debut'
LIZ NUGENT, author of Our Little Cruelties

’Intensely evocative and deeply moving… I held my breath as a I read’
RUTH GILLIGAN, RSL Ondaatje Prize-winning author of The Butchers