Black Butterflies: SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2023

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Black Butterflies, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award, the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and the Nota Bene Prize. Zora, a middle-aged painter, has sent her husband, Franjo, and elderly mother off to England to stay with her daughter, Dubravka, confident that she’ll see out the fighting in the safety of their flat and welcome them home in no time. Beautifully written and hauntingly evocative, Black Butterflies distils into a single consciousness a nation’s violent trauma and an artist’s sense of hope. War can creep up on a population: it can begin ever so gradually as freedoms are slowly eroded before suddenly reaching a tipping point, erupting and changing lives and families forever.

The human interest element revolves around a talented painter, and her fascination with the bridges of Sarajevo (Goats bridge in particular) is well described. Her husband and elderly mother leave for England, and she stays behind to continue working as an artist and teacher. I was interested in the subject matter but this feels superficial in treatment and with no subtlety or nuance or additional historical insight, or any sense of knowledge beyond that which anyone outside of the former Yugoslavia could have read in the newspapers.

The story was distressing and had the strong ring of truth and authenticity, although it was not ostensibly based on any single life during the siege of Sarajevo. But when violence finally spills over, she sees that she must send her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. Art also ends up offering her solace, when she feels lost, for her neighbours sending their little daughter Una for lessons gives her (in fact them both) something to look forward to.

When violence finally spills over, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. A harrowing examination into the siege of Sarajevo in 1992, a period in history of which I knew nothing.This novel comes at an apt time, not just because it marks the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the Siege of Sarajevo, but because it testifies to the ease and speed with which things can fall apart’ Kevin Sullivan, author of The Longest Winter You may also be interested in. Zora Kočović is a professor of art at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University in Sarajevo, where she lives with her husband Franjo, a former journalist and eighty-three-year-old mother, who spends winters at their flat. That lends a lot of validity to what would otherwise have seemed as fictional events improbable in real life. Yet, in changing circumstances we might lose everything we have, our possesions, our freedom, anything which make us human, overnight.

But when the unrest intensifies and all avenues to leave are gradually shut down, she is trapped, alone but for her neighbors and students, deriving comfort and support from one another. In the spring of 1992, fifty-five year old Zora can’t imagine that the Siege of Sarajevo will last long. 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. In particular, I was inspired by the stories of my great-uncle’s loss of his art studio during the war.BLACK BUTTERFLIES was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and the Nota Bene Prize.

I love teaching as well as writing and teach creative writing, most recently at University College Dublin.

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”. Then again, one of the characters says that even they fail to understand why the war started in the first place. When even the haven of her studio is taken away from her, she’s reduced to the bare bones of existence, with just a few beloved neighbours to keep her spirits up. The writing may seem understated, but I was impressed at how skilfully crafted it is, especially for a debut.