Today’s episodes is about one of my most favourite cities in the world – Sarajevo. Bosnian history is really fascinating, heartbreaking and complex, but gives us so much to learn from, reflect on and truly understand about the world and communities. In this episode, I’m talking to Priscilla Morris about her debut novel, Black Butterflies, which is set in 1992 in Sarajevo, at the beginning of the Siege of Sarajevo, which was initially believed to last just a few days, but continued for four years.  

Born to a Yugoslav mother and English father, Priscilla wrote her debut novel Black Butterflies to understand the siege that devastated her mother’s hometown of Sarajevo from 1992-1996. It has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and longlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. It was chosen as Indie Fiction Book of the Month in May 2022. It is currently being translated into Bosnian, Italian and Catalan.

She lectures in creative writing at University College Dublin and has taught at the University of East Anglia, Kingston University and City Lit. She haa an MA with Distinction and a PhD in Creative Writing from UEA. She read Italian, Spanish and Social Anthropology at Cambridge University.  I’m so glad she’s my guest today. 

Buy Black Butterflies here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5890/9780715654590

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