The South

by Colm Tóibín (Author), Colm Tóibín (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $4.02

  In 1950, Katherine Proctor leaves Ireland and her family for Barcelona, determined 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 to Spain, forces her to re-examine all her relationships: to her lover, her art and the homeland she only thought she knew.

  `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

  `A broad and beautifully worked canvas . . . An imaginative, deeply felt and evocative tale' Sunday Times

• Used

  Paperback
  1990

  $3.27

  'Night is coming down and there is a hum of noise from the street. I have been here for several weeks. I am grateful that the fat woman who runs this hotel and her little mouse of a husband do not speak English. I remain a mystery to them; they cannot get through to me. The man in the next room - as far as I can understand a word he says - goes to the opera every night and listens to opera on his radio all the time.' The South begins with Katherine Proctor's arrival in Barcelona in 1950. Drawn by her longing to be an artist, she has left her family behind in Ireland. In Spain, she meets Miguel, an anarchist veteran of the Civil War and together they embark on a new life. The past catches up with them. and Katherine is forced to question her relationship to her lover, to her painting, and to the other man she meets in Spain, Michael Graves, through whom she discovers an Ireland she never knew. In a prose that is both lyrical and direct, Colm T?ib?n convinces his readers that Katherine will reconcile her freedom and her need to paint. To classical themes, he brings a new, passionate sensitivity.