Black Butterflies - Priscilla Morris

Author: Priscilla Morris

Genre: Historical Fiction.

Rating: 4.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: An enlightening and traumatising fictional account of a war I wasn’t much aware of – the Bosnian war of the early 1990s. Well-researched, well-written, bitter-sweet.

Story:

1992, Sarajevo. Zora is a 55 year old artist who teaches art at college and loves to paint bridges and nature scenes in her spare time. She stays with her 70 year old husband and also has her 83 year mother staying nearby. When the war begins, Zora’s family doesn’t believe that it would go on for long. But when the law and order situation degrades after some ethnic groups tussle over their rights, Zora’s husband plans to take his sick mother-in-law to the UK where his daughter lives with her family. However, the transport lines are closed soon after his departure and Zora find herself stuck all alone in a war-torn city, with hardly any resources, very few trustworthy neighbours, and no hope of escape.

The story is narrated in the third person perspective of Zora.

First, know a little more about the Bosnian War to realise how historically significant (and monumentally stupid and infinitely wasteful) it was. Estimates suggest around 100,000 people were killed during the war. Over 2.2 million people were displaced, making it the most devastating conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. In addition, an estimated 12,000–50,000 women were raped, mainly carried out by Serb forces, with most of the victims being Bosniak women. The author focusses on the experiences of those surviving in the part of Sarajevo that was under attack by the Serbs. I was grateful that she didn’t include any rape narratives in her story – I don’t think I could have handled that. Simply reading this statistic is enough to depress me.

Where the book worked for me:

💐 It was an eye-opener! There were so many situations I simply couldn't fathom - your family property being distributed among strangers because of a communist government's weird beliefs, being on the waiting list for more than a decade to get a flat allotted, the government declaring that anyone can move into empty house as the owners have “abandoned” them… and this is even before the actual war began! How we take our privileges under democracy for granted! Sigh.

💐 The author pays fair attention to each of the ethnic groups in Sarajevo. To use her stats, “half of Sarajevo is Muslim, a quarter Serb and fewer than one in ten are Croat. About a third of the population are in mixed marriages.” All of these are represented fairly in the story through characters coming from various ethnic identities. More importantly, no sides are taken. (The author mentions in her note that there are no ethnic identities but national identities in Bosnia, but unless you read her note entirely, you won’t understand why. So I stuck to the word “ethnic” in this review.)

💐 There are no breaks through regular chapters. Instead, the narrative is divided in long sections named by season – Spring, Summer,... This was a great way to highlight how time passes differently under situations of siege. (Don’t we all remember how time almost stopped during the lockdown?!?) This feels like one endless story that spirals slowly into a kind of claustrophobic hopelessness.

💐 The title has a special significance in the story, and this gets revealed only about the midway mark in a distressing event. I would have thought it to be an exaggeration but when I read that part, I remembered a scene from the first episode of the TV series ‘Chernobyl” where a similar experience with “black butterflies” was shown. That scene helped me visualise this event properly. In addition, you can search online for the meaning of “black butterfly” and once you read the book, you will see what an apt title it is for this story.

💐 There is a strong underlying theme of bridges, which is so ironic in a war story. Zora’s specialty is painting bridges. Her latest artwork is set around one of the main bridges of the city. Some folk stories within the narrative are set around bridges. And yet, all the bridges between Sarajevo and the outside world have been destroyed by the war, as have the internal metaphorical bridges between the different ethnic groups.

💐 There are many situations in the book that will show you a side of war you have hardly ever seen in fiction. Some scenes create a claustrophobic feeling; others are way too disquieting. The story hits hard on your emotions. The writing enhances the impact. Sample this line written by Zora in a letter: “We're all refugees now. We spend our days waiting for water, for bread, for humanitarian handouts: beggars in our own city.”

💐 The ending is perfect for such a story.

💐 The author has researched her book well and it shows in the detailed and precise penning of incidents and feelings.

💐 The author’s note clarifies which two persons' experiences she combined and adapted into this story. That lends a lot of validity to what would otherwise have seemed as fictional events improbable in real life.

💐 I couldn’t believe that this was a debut novel. It has a maturity lacking in the writing of far more experienced authors.

Where the book could have worked better for me:

⚠ If there was one thing that strongly took away from my experience, it was the romantic track. Yes, yes, I understand… war time, living in the present, exceptional circumstances, absent spouses, can’t function within normal societal rules,.. blah blah.. But it was still forced and unnecessary to the main plot.

⚠ There are a lot of lengthy descriptions of the city and its sites. It felt like an emotional ode to Sarajevo, a tad overdone. (This is understandable given the topic of the book.)

⚠ I wasn’t much familiar with the details of these events except for a skeletal knowledge of the war having taken place. So I found myself a little lost at times in understanding the geography and the politics of the region. I also didn’t understand what issue the war began over. (Then again, one of the characters says that even they fail to understand why the war started in the first place. So I guess there’s no easy answer to this question.) I would have appreciated a brief note at the end on the facts behind the cause of the war and the political climate at the time, just like the facts behind the ethnic groups were clarified in the author’s note.

⚠ The book is marked as literary fiction but it is more of a commercial historical fiction. This didn’t make any difference to me this time but to those who expect a book to cater to its advertised genre, this could be a minor problem.

I couldn’t help connecting this story with the situation in Ukraine right now. Of course, the author hasn’t written this book to capitalise on the current war because I had received this book from Netgalley in January and it is meant to be published on the 30th anniversary of the ‘Siege of Sarajevo’. But there are so many similarities between the experience of Zora and what we read about Ukraine citizens in the newspaper. It makes me feel like no matter how much our technology progresses, we humans don’t progress in “humanity” – our thoughts are still all about power and control, whether over nature or over other people. We are truly a selfish species on the whole. 😟

All I can say is, if you are looking for a book that unveils the hidden costs of war on the citizens forced into it, and that juxtaposes many opposite feelings - vulnerability and resilience, hope and hopelessness, devastation and creation, this is the book for you. But please note, if you are in an anxious or depressed state of mind, I suggest you stay away from this book until you are in a happier mental place.

My thanks to Duckworth Books and NetGalley for the DRC of “Black Butterflies”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.