Johannesburg - Fiona Melrose

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Résumé :
6 December 2013. Johannesburg.

Gin has returned home from New York to throw a party for her mother's eightieth birthday; a few blocks away, at the Residence, Nelson Mandela's family prepares to announce Tata Mandela's death...

So begins Johannesburg, Fiona Melrose's searing second novel. Responsive to Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, the story follows a polyphonic course across a single day, culminating in a party and traces the fractures and connections of the city, in particular, Gin's encounter with September, a homeless man who lives in the neighbourhood.

An irascible mother, a daughter trying to negotiate a city and the people from her past, a homeless hunchback who takes his fight for justice to the doors of a mining company, a mining magnate, a man still haunted by his first love, and the domestic workers who serve this cast and populate the neighbourhood - these are the characters who give voice to the city on a day hot with nerves and tension.

Johannesburg is a profound hymn to an extraordinary city, and a devastating personal and political manifesto on love.

Biographie:
Fiona Melrose was born in Johannesburg but has spent the majority of her adult life in the UK, first in London and then in East Anglia. Previously Fiona has worked in academia, NGO's, public affairs and as an emerging markets analyst. She continues to keep a foot in both continents and is currently spending the majority of her time back in South Africa.