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 is the book that introduced readers to the astonishing gifts of Colm Tóibín, winning the Irish Times First Fiction Award in 1991.