Johannesburg - Tapa dura

With Johannesburg, Melrose enters a widely travelled literary territory and makes it her own. It is a fine novel and Melrose is fast on her way to establishing herself as one of the most fascinating, versatile novelists of our time and place. (Cape Times)

Following the interlinked lives of a handful of Johannesburg residents, this is an ambitious, beautifully written novel that seems to sing. (Sarra Manning, Red magazine)

To say Fiona Melrose's new book Johannesburg is ambitious is an understatement. But she pulls off a stream-of-consciousness success, following a single day in the South African capital through the eyes of everyone from an expat artist to a homeless hunchback. Kudos. (Stella magazine, the Sunday Telegraph)

The pages fly by. Clearly written from the heart, in it we can find much of our own lives, regardless of the setting. Melrose paints the city beautifully, full of grace, colour and even fear. (Belfast Telegraph)

Delicate yet devastating . . . Melrose beautifully captures the simmering, shimmering city and the vivid characters that walk its tense streets. (Psychologies magazine)

Melrose portrays [the city] beautifully, full of grace, colour and even fear. (Independent i)

Melrose can undoubtedly write . . . what emerges is her original depiction of modern Johannesburg - a beautiful, violent, unforgiving place that is a social reality and a state of mind. (Daily Mail)

Beautifully observed . . . Together, these varied voices bear witness to the experience of living in a complicated city. (Mail on Sunday)

Woolf produced blooms that are impossible to emulate. Johannesburg provides evidence of a novelist who can grow inimitable flowers herself. (The Spectator)

Melrose takes a seemingly ordinary day and renders it into something poignant and moving (Image Ireland)