The first highly acclaimed novel from an immensely gifted and accomplished writer ("The Washington Post"), about an Irishwoman who creates a new life in post-war Spain.
In 1950, Katherine Proctor leaves Ireland for Barcelona, determined to escape her family and become a painter. There she meets Miguel, an anarchist veteran of the Spanish Civil War, and begins to build a life with him. But Katherine cannot escape her past, as Michael Graves, a fellow Irish emigre in Spain, forces her to reexamine all her relationships: to her lover, her art, and the homeland she only thought she knew.
The South is a novel of classic themes of art and exile, and of the seemingly irreconcilable yearnings for love and freedom to which Colm Toibin brings a new, passionate sensitivity."