The South - Paperback

by Colm Toibin (Author)

A highly acclaimed novel from the author of Brooklyn and 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 émigré 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 Tóibín brings a new, passionate sensitivity.

Author Biography

Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah's Book Club Pick; The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; and Nora Webster, winner of the Hawthornden Prize, as well as three story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and was named the 2022-2024 Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland. In 2021, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature.