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.

Black Butterflies tells the story of Zora, a woman who decides to remain behind in her war torn home of Sarajevo, while her husband and mother leave to stay in England with Zora's daughter. But as the city falls under siege, Zora and the people around her – most of whom she barely knows – find themselves cut off from their comforts, rights and the outside world. This book also includes one of my least favorite tropes (an affair), and the fallout of that was never examined in any real depth. In conversation with Serbian journalist Dunja Ilić at Bookstan International Literature Festival, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on 6 July 2023. Born to a Bosnian mother and a Cornish father, I grew up mostly in London, spending childhood summers in my mother's hometown of Sarajevo.

It comes at an apt time because it testifies to the ease and speed with which things can fall apart. A beautifully written account of the siege of Sarajevo in the nineties that could easily apply to many corners of the world where people of different “tribes” live peacefully together but then are thrown into a conflict that pits neighbours and families against each other. Beautifully written and hauntingly evocative, Black Butterflies distils into a single consciousness a nation’s violent trauma and an artist’s sense of hope.

In particular, I was inspired by the stories of my great-uncle’s loss of his art studio during the war and my father’s rescue of my maternal grandparents. This is what Zora does and also really the way she expresses her love for the city and also her emotions towards it.It’s an informative novel allowing readers to develop compassion for refugees and those who seek asylum today. She knows all its alleys and courtyards, all its scents and sounds - the way the light falls at the end of their street in wintertime, the rattle of the tram, the blowsy roses that bloom each June in the mosque gardens, the plums and fogs in the autumn, the ponderous old men playing chess in the cafes, the mahalas - the old neighborhoods - that radiate from the centre like the spiral of a snail’s shell. Then again, one of the characters says that even they fail to understand why the war started in the first place. Zora decides that while she will stay back a while for her painting and her job, Franjo and her mother are to travel to England for their annual visit to their daughter Dubravka, married to an Englishman, Stephen and their little daughter Ruby. It was especially poignant to be reading this during the war in Ukraine and think about the sorts of daily dangers and deprivation that people face in conflict zones.

When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. This beautifully written story underlines the contrast between the horrors of the male dominated war in daily details like not being able to flush the toilet for months, and the strength of the human soul portrayed in the female artist. I’m recommending Black Butterflies for fans of beautifully written historical fiction, for readers who might be familiar with Sarajevo, for readers who love stories about ordinary people in the most difficult circumstances, and for those who appreciate a memoir-like narrative.

When it gets too dark and cold, my husband and I scuttle off to our house in the hills near Girona, Spain. Predominantly secular and home to a multi-ethnic population, April 1992 saw Bosnian Serb Nationalists place Sarajevo under siege, intending to remove Bosnian Muslims – an act of “ethnic cleansing”. In this compelling and convincing debut novel, Morris brilliantly evokes a world slipping, day by day, under the surface of the opaque waters of war. Sarajevo’s people continue to fight against the seeds of division that the conflict tries to sow (there are some of course, who hold radical views, too). Za sada jedina knjiga iz ovogodišnje Women's prize for fiction selekcije koja me je privukla i to zato što je tema romana opsada Sarajeva.

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. The prose was beautiful, showing the limitlessness of inspiration and human connection as clear and bright as paint on a canvas.

Gunshots and fireworks broke out in the capital Podgerica in jubilant scenes that I will never forget. The author’s note clarifies which two persons' experiences she combined and adapted into this story. The residents of Zora’s apartment building stuck together and supported each other revealing their resilience and love for their community as they painted, sang and watched out for one another. Zora is a 55 year old artist who teaches art at college and loves to paint bridges and nature scenes in her spare time.