Description

A modern classic work of Irish literature, this award-winning novel is an exploration of love, art and identity.

This was the night train to Barcelona, some hours before the dawn. This was 1950, late September. I had left my husband. I had left my home.

Katherine Proctor has dared to leave her family in Ireland and reach out for a new life. Determined to become an artist, she flees to Spain, where she meets Miguel, a passionate man who has fought for his own freedoms. They retreat to the quiet intensity of the mountains and begin to build a life together.

But as Miguel’s past catches up with him, Katherine too is forced to re-examine her relationships: with her lover, her painting and the homeland she only thought she knew. . .

The South was Colm Toibin’s debut novel, winning the Irish Times First Fiction Award in 1991.

‘An imaginative, deeply felt and evocative tale’ – The Sunday Times

‘Colm Toibin writes prose of a heartbreaking beauty’- Hilary Mantel

Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

Read Long Island, the Sunday Times bestselling sequel to Colm Toibin’s beloved Brooklyn.

Publisher Review

A broad and beautifully worked canvas . . . An imaginative, deeply felt and evocative tale * Sunday Times * A daring, imaginative feat; the world it conjures is at once familiar and strange, and strangely moving. A splendid first novel -- John Banville This is a strong and moving work of fiction about the hard truths of changing one's life. Colm Toibin, like his characters, never says too much and never lets us grow too comfortable. A grand achievement -- Don DeLillo Colm Toibin writes prose of a heartbreaking beauty. -- Hilary Mantel Clever, evocative and intelligent * Irish Times * The story is told with spare, simple elegance * London Review of Books *