Being ‘an outsider looking in’ is useful for a writer – Fiona Melrose chats about her new book, Johannesburg
More about the book!

Fiona Melrose chatted to Lauren Miller for the The Mechanics’ Institute Review recently about her new novel, Johannesburg.

Melrose was born in Johannesburg, and spent much of her adult like in the United Kingdom. Her debut novel, Midwinter, was longlisted for the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Johannesburg, her searing second novel, is set across the course of a single day; the day on which Nelson Mandela dies.

Melrose says she feels like an outsider in Johannesburg, but says she believes that is a useful position to be in as a writer:

LM: Midwinter’s setting is primarily rural England, and your new novel Johannesburg is set solely in the city. Having spent time in both these places, are you more surprised by the similarities or the stark differences between the two regions? Did you find it hard to adjust to the more urban landscape of Johannesburg?

FM: Much of the writing of Johannesburg came about as I was so entirely overwhelmed by my return to the city, which has a much more visceral, immediate energy after the whispering hedgerows of Suffolk. Obviously Johannesburg announces its provenance quite boldly. […] I was newly returned to the city after living in Suffolk for many years. I could still navigate the city as a local might but had all the anxieties and alienation of a foreign visitor. I knew that would not last and so tried to write as much as I could in notes and sketches before I became reabsorbed into the local landscape again. The same was true of Midwinter. I knew Suffolk as I had family there but was still very much an outsider looking in. I think the benefit of that is that one’s ear is more likely to pick up visual or auditory oddities, notice detail on landscape. The benefit of being an outsider for a writer is well documented.