  Radio galaxies harbouring jetted active galactic nuclei are a frequent target
of very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) because they play an essential role
in exploring how jets form and propagate. Hence, only few have not been
detected with VLBI yet; Fornax A is one of the most famous examples. Here we
present the first detection of the compact core region of Fornax A with VLBI.
At 8.4 GHz the faint core is consistent with an unresolved point source. We
constrained its flux density to be $S_0 = 47.5-62.3\,\textrm{mJy}$ and its
diameter to be $D^\textrm{min}_0 \leq 70\,\mu\textrm{as}$. The high values of
the measured brightness temperature ($T_\textrm{B} \gtrsim
10^{11}\,\textrm{K}$) imply that the observed radiation is of non-thermal
origin, likely associated with the synchrotron emission from the active
galactic nucleus. We also investigated the possibility of a second radio source
being present within the field of view. Adding a second Gaussian component to
the geometrical model-fit does not significantly improve the quality of the fit
and we, therefore, conclude that our detection corresponds to the compact core
of Fornax A. Analysis of the non-trivial closure phases provides evidence for
the detection of more extended flux density, on the angular scale of
$\sim4000\,\mu\textrm{as}$. Finally, the fractional circular polarisation of
the core is consistent with zero, with a conservative upper limit being
$m_\textrm{circ} \leq 4\%$.
