The South is a 1990 novel by Irish writer Colm Tóibín.
Plot summary
Katherine Proctor, a Protestant woman of 32 from Ireland, arrives in Barcelona in 1950 having left her husband Tom, their 10-year-old son Richard, the large landed property they own, and Ireland. She repeats what her own mother did, leave her husband and child. She leaves the home her father built as she fears reprisals (a mob having previously set fire to their home some years ago) because her husband was too harsh with their Catholic neighbours.
She starts discovering the city of Barcelona and gets to meet local painters. The Francoist State and the still recent civil war define life in Spain. She meets the artist Miguel, a man who fought in that Civil War. She meets Michael Graves, an Irishman from her same town, also in Barcelona. He loved Katherine. Acquainted with a group of painters, Katherine begins to paint, taking lessons and trying her hand. She is a passionate painter, similar to Miguel, and unlike Michael, who paints what will sell.
After becoming lovers with Miguel, the two move to a remote village in the Pyrenees, where Miguel fought in the Civil War.
Edition changes
The endings of the hardback and paperback editions differ. Tóibín altered two sentences of the book's ending because he thought it was too soft. He said in 2021: "There was one moment where it looked like they were going to be happy forever. What I had was slightly too sugary."
Thomas O'Dwyer writing in The Jerusalem Post drew comparisons with the work of Milan Kundera the Czech-French author, remarking that "the power of emotion and events is so piercing" in this first novel by Tóibín.
"Spare, grave and finely articulated" is how Richard Eder described this novel, adding that it is "terribly abstract". The story interweaves the Spanish Civil War and the Irish Troubles, two harsh events in the past of Katherine and her lover, perhaps suggesting reconciliation by the end of the novel.
The Washington Post<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Barbara Probst Solomon referred to "the tremendous amount Tóibín leaves unsaid".
Awards and nominations
The South won the Aer Lingus Literature Prize in 1991.