Black Butterflies (2022) is set in the spring of 1992 in Sarajevo during the so-called "siege of Sarajevo." Each night during the siege, racist gangs create barriers around the city, separating its ethnic areas into their sections. Each morning, in turn, the citizens of Sarajevo destroy those barriers.
Eventually, violence erupts across the city, which leads the novel's main character, Zora, to send her husband and daughter to live in England. There, she hopes that they will be safe. But Zora stays behind, thinking that the siege will end in only a few weeks and that she will be needed to rebuild the city she knows and loves. In the end, after a long and bitter surge of violence, Zora is given that opportunity.
Reactions to Black Butterflies were largely positive. For example, Phil Baker of The Times offered this mostly positive take: "Black Butterflies is lucidly and vividly written, but flirts with the occasional overzealous poetic flourish." The Independent felt much more warmly towards Black Butterflies. In their review of the novel, they opined that "Priscilla Morris's Black Butterflies is a timely love letter to a war-torn Sarajevo" and that the book is "thoughtful" and "atmospheric."
