Colm Toibin, who recently brought us his deeply moving novel, Nora Webster has had many hugely successful novels since his first novel. The South was his highly acclaimed award-winning first novel. Arrestingly visual and enduringly atmospheric, it is a classic novel of art, sacrifice, and courage. A book that you can’t put down until the bitter end.

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.