Black Butterflies

Priscilla Morris is the author of the historical fiction book called Black Butterflies. The black butterflies are what she sees when her art classroom in Sarajevo is bombed and burned to the ground. Priceless books and documents and paintings are burned and the remains flutter to the earth in black, butterfly shaped forms. The story is about Zora, an art professor in 1992. With her mother ill, she sends her husband and her mother to England to stay with her daughter. Zora stays behind to protect their apartment and her mother's apartment. Day by day the conditions in Sarajevo worsen. Snipers are on rooftops. Bombs drop on the city. The electricity is turned off. When it comes back on, about once a week, everyone gets busy baking or vacuuming no matter what time of day or night. Food become expensive and non-existent. People make soup from nettles and dandelions. Zora looses weight. She sells her precious belongings. She tries to continue doing art. She helps a young neighbor girl with an art project. When the paints run out she incorporates feathers and broken glass and other objects. Zora sees dead bodies in the streets. No one comes to take the body of an old woman away so the neighbors pile wildflowers on the deceased. This was a gripping tale. The author is British and she lives in Ireland. Her mother was from Bosnia. The author spent summers in Sarajevo.