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 émigré to Spain, forces her to reexamine all her relationships: to her lover, her art and the homeland she only thought...

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 émigré to Spain, forces her to reexamine all her relationships: to her lover, her art and the homeland she only thought she knew.

The South is both powerful and lyrical, a novel of classical themes—of art and exile, and of the seemingly irreconcilable yearnings for love and freedom—to which Colm Tóibín brings a new, passionate sensitivity.