Colm Tóibín wrote the short story A Long Winter a long time ago, in 2005. We are very lucky that he has republished it as a standalone. This is a piece of brilliant and evocative prose. It also packs such a powerful literary punch that it needs to be read in fruitful isolation.

Tóibín has spent a fair amount of time in Catalonia. This novella is set in the sparsely populated Spanish foothills of the Pyrenees. It seems we’re a fair way back in time; like many details in this story, time and place are never certain. Miquel lives with his family on their small farm , growing up while his mother falls into alcoholism and his father becomes ever more anguished.

One day, Miquel’s mother leaves. Miquel thinks she has tried to go back over the hills, to the village of her childhood. The wa

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