In Conversation with Priscilla Morris - 30th April
Join Night Owl Books for an online event with Priscilla Morris, author of the Women's Prize for Fiction longlist title Black Butterflies. We're delighted that Priscilla will be joining us for a Q&A via Zoom on Sunday, 30th April at 7.30pm. A recording will be shared with attendees afterwards.
We'll be donating all of the proceeds from ticket sales from this event to two charities, Sunflower Scotland and Wings of Hope. £2.50 from each ticket sale will be donated to Sunflower Scotland, and £2.50 to Wings of Hope.
You can pre-order a copy of Black Butterflies in paperback (which will be released on 20th April) here.
About Black Butterflies:
Sarajevo, spring 1992. 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.
Zora, an artist and teacher, is focused on her family, her students, her studio in the old town. But when violence finally spills over, she sees that she must send her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. Reluctant to believe that hostilities will last more than a handful of weeks, she stays behind. As the city falls under siege and everything they loved is laid to waste, black ashes floating over the rooftops, Zora and her friends are forced to rebuild themselves, over and over.
Inspired by real-life accounts of the longest siege in modern warfare, only thirty years ago, Black Butterflies is a breathtaking portrait of disintegration, resilience and hope.
Softcover, 288 pages, published 20th April 2023.
About Priscilla Morris:
Priscilla Morris is a debut author from London who lives mostly in Ireland and sometimes in Spain. She read Spanish, Italian and Social Anthropology at Cambridge University and spent her younger years teaching English in England, Spain and Brazil. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and teaches creative writing at University College Dublin.
Her debut novel Black Butterflies, set during the siege of Sarajevo, with themes of disintegration, resilience and art as resistance to war, has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023 and for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2023. You can find out more about Priscilla and Black Butterflies at www.
About Sunflower Scotland:
Sunflower Scotland (Scottish charity SC052092), is organised by Scottish volunteers with families in Ukraine, and sends aid to Ukraine and provides assistance to Ukrainian refugees coming to Scotland to find mental health support and work. You can read more about their work here.
About Wings of Hope:
Wings of Hope International was developed in 1994 by children that had been imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp. As adults, these people were horrified by the challenges facing children in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Pieter Dietz de Loos, the founder and original president of Wings of Hope International explains the problems facing young people after war and the foundation’s aims:
“Treating war trauma is a long process. It will take generations. I see the mind’s reaction to this trauma as sound reactions to those unsound happenings. We therefore need not feel ashamed when we feel unhappy or guilty for being alive, or when we cannot enjoy life, which we do from time to time. Or when we have nightmares and other unpleasant reactions. Wings of Hope, established for this purpose, is committed to this work”.
The founders named Wings of Hope after a drawing of a girl who had been expelled from her hometown. She entitled her picture “butterflies have short lives”. This had a strong impact not only in naming “Wings of Hope”, but in the direction of the organisation: to prevent further children from having such a tragic view of life. Wings of Hope International was based in Wassenaar, The Netherlands, and branches have since been developed in Sarajevo, Munich, Iraq and Palestine/Israel. You can read more about their work here.
PLEASE NOTE:
The workshop will be held via Zoom. If you haven't used Zoom before, please download it to your to your computer, tablet, or phone before you join the workshop (you can learn more about using Zoom on different devices here).
You will be sent a link to join the workshop via email at 12pm on the day of the event - please do check your inbox spam folder if you have not received it shortly after this, or contact us via email at hello@nightowlbooks.co.uk.
Author image Conor Horgan @Conor Horgan.