The South

In 1950 Katherine Proctor leaves Ireland for Barcelona, determined to escape her family and to become a painter. There she meets Miguel, an anarchist veteran of the Spanish Civil War, and proceeds 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.