Genre Fiction
![Nadifa Mohamed - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B0036XI6GS.jpg)
The Fortune Men: A novel
BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • Based on a true event, this novel is "a blues song cut straight from the heart ... about the unjust death of an innocent Black man caught up in a corrupt system. The full life of Mahmood Mattan, the last man executed in Cardiff for a crime he was exonerated for forty years later [is] brought alive with subtle artistry and heartbreaking humanity" (Walter Mosley, best-selling author of Devil in a Blue Dress).
In Cardiff, Wales in 1952, Mahmood Mattan, a young Somali sailor, is accused of a crime he did not commit: the brutal killing of Violet Volacki, a shopkeeper from Tiger Bay. At first, Mahmood believes he can ignore the fingers pointing his way; he may be a gambler and a petty thief, but he is no murderer. He is a father of three, secure in his innocence and his belief in British justice.
But as the trial draws closer, his prospect for freedom dwindles. Now, Mahmood must stage a terrifying fight for his life, with all the chips stacked against him: a shoddy investigation, an inhumane legal system, and, most evidently, pervasive and deep-rooted racism at every step.
Under the shadow of the hangman's noose, Mahmood begins to realize that even the truth may not be enough to save him. A haunting tale of miscarried justice, this book offers a chilling look at the dark corners of our humanity.
In Cardiff, Wales in 1952, Mahmood Mattan, a young Somali sailor, is accused of a crime he did not commit: the brutal killing of Violet Volacki, a shopkeeper from Tiger Bay. At first, Mahmood believes he can ignore the fingers pointing his way; he may be a gambler and a petty thief, but he is no murderer. He is a father of three, secure in his innocence and his belief in British justice.
But as the trial draws closer, his prospect for freedom dwindles. Now, Mahmood must stage a terrifying fight for his life, with all the chips stacked against him: a shoddy investigation, an inhumane legal system, and, most evidently, pervasive and deep-rooted racism at every step.
Under the shadow of the hangman's noose, Mahmood begins to realize that even the truth may not be enough to save him. A haunting tale of miscarried justice, this book offers a chilling look at the dark corners of our humanity.
Editorial Reviews
"Heart-wrenching. . . . This powerful, deeply affecting exploration of mid-twentieth-century racism and other forms of prejudice has stark relevance today."-Booklist
"A novel on fire, a restitution of justice in prose . . . The Fortune Men can be read as a comment on 21st-century Britain and its continued troubled legacy of empire, but also as a beautifully judged fiction in its own right-teeming with life, character and humour, and, particularly, evocative of place."-Catherine Taylor, Financial Times
"Based on a real-life case from 1952, The Fortune Man is a masterpiece in storytelling. It tells of Mahmood Mattan, a Somali seaman who was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Lily Volpert and was one of the last men to be executed in Wales. Mohamed's ability to examine the blistering racial injustices of the time is sobering and immense."-Eva Waite-Taylor, The Independent
"Utterly gripping . . . Nadifa Mohamed's fictional account of this real-life miscarriage of justice has quite rightly been longlisted for the Booker Prize. . . . She tackles this largely forgotten story with skill and empathy."-Alex Peake-Tomkinson, Prospect
"An engrossing and tense story . . . the senses of loss and cruelty are palpable . . . [The Fortune Men is] an intimate personal portrait with a broader message on the mistreatment of migrants."-Kirkus Reviews
"[The Fortune Men is] unbearably wrenching, as racism, inept policing and the lure of a cash reward from the victim's family combine to corner the father-of-three in a monstrous web of injustice. . . . Mohamed makes the outrage at the book's heart blazingly unignorable by inhabiting Mattan's point of view, a bold endeavour pulled off to powerful effect."-Anthony Cummins, Daily Mail U.K.
"The Fortune Men . . . confirms [Mohamed] as a literary star of her generation. . . . When Mohamed's prose – simple and full of soul – illuminates him, Mahmood emerges as a beacon of humour, hope and endurance."-Ashish Ghadiali, The Observer
"Nadifa Mohamed's The Fortune Men is a blues song cut straight from the heart. It tells about the unjust death of an innocent Black man caught up in a corrupt system. Nadifa's masterful evocation of the full life of Mahmood Mattan, the last man executed in Cardiff for a crime he was exonerated for forty years later, is brought alive with subtle artistry and heartbreaking humanity. In one man's life Mohamed captures the multitudes of homelands, dialects, hopes, and prayers of Somalis, Jews, Maltese and West Indians drawn in by the ships that filled Wales' Tiger Bay in the 1950's, all hoping for a future that eludes Mattan."-Walter Mosley, autho...
"A novel on fire, a restitution of justice in prose . . . The Fortune Men can be read as a comment on 21st-century Britain and its continued troubled legacy of empire, but also as a beautifully judged fiction in its own right-teeming with life, character and humour, and, particularly, evocative of place."-Catherine Taylor, Financial Times
"Based on a real-life case from 1952, The Fortune Man is a masterpiece in storytelling. It tells of Mahmood Mattan, a Somali seaman who was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Lily Volpert and was one of the last men to be executed in Wales. Mohamed's ability to examine the blistering racial injustices of the time is sobering and immense."-Eva Waite-Taylor, The Independent
"Utterly gripping . . . Nadifa Mohamed's fictional account of this real-life miscarriage of justice has quite rightly been longlisted for the Booker Prize. . . . She tackles this largely forgotten story with skill and empathy."-Alex Peake-Tomkinson, Prospect
"An engrossing and tense story . . . the senses of loss and cruelty are palpable . . . [The Fortune Men is] an intimate personal portrait with a broader message on the mistreatment of migrants."-Kirkus Reviews
"[The Fortune Men is] unbearably wrenching, as racism, inept policing and the lure of a cash reward from the victim's family combine to corner the father-of-three in a monstrous web of injustice. . . . Mohamed makes the outrage at the book's heart blazingly unignorable by inhabiting Mattan's point of view, a bold endeavour pulled off to powerful effect."-Anthony Cummins, Daily Mail U.K.
"The Fortune Men . . . confirms [Mohamed] as a literary star of her generation. . . . When Mohamed's prose – simple and full of soul – illuminates him, Mahmood emerges as a beacon of humour, hope and endurance."-Ashish Ghadiali, The Observer
"Nadifa Mohamed's The Fortune Men is a blues song cut straight from the heart. It tells about the unjust death of an innocent Black man caught up in a corrupt system. Nadifa's masterful evocation of the full life of Mahmood Mattan, the last man executed in Cardiff for a crime he was exonerated for forty years later, is brought alive with subtle artistry and heartbreaking humanity. In one man's life Mohamed captures the multitudes of homelands, dialects, hopes, and prayers of Somalis, Jews, Maltese and West Indians drawn in by the ships that filled Wales' Tiger Bay in the 1950's, all hoping for a future that eludes Mattan."-Walter Mosley, autho...
Readers Top Reviews
bookwormSTEPHEN JOHN
I usually love Nadifa Mohamed’s books however although I enjoyed it I found it a little difficult to engage with any of the characters. This didn’t detract from the wonderful story and Nadifa’s style and prose are as eloquent as in her previous books. I am going to try to reread this in a few months as there were sections which made me smile, laugh and cry
John Maile
I enjoyed this book very much, particularly the evocation of the early fifties in Cardiff. Clearly the book is well researched, but the descriptions do not intrude on the story-telling, a story of fundamental injustice fuelled by police incompetence and racism; sadly, a true representation of the era. On the other hand, the main character is his own worst enemy. An absorbing and challenging book from a gifted writer.
Mr R S Elliott
I feel like I've lived among the various characters of all shapes and sizes in Tiger Bay, have come to know Mahmood, and his story of injustice. I laughed, winced, worried and sobbed when reading this book - a page turner for sure.
A. Petroskyjoolsa.mo
What's the point of withholding sales to the US for nine months; i can see maybe the physical book, but the Kindle version? This book has been short-listed for the Booker prize, and isn't available in the biggest English-speaking market. But it wont be available to download until Marchs, months after we know whether it's lost or won.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Kow
[ One ]
Tiger Bay, February 1952
The King is dead. Long live the Queen." The announcer's voice crackles from the wireless and winds around the rapt patrons of Berlin's Milk Bar as sinuously as the fog curls around the mournful street lamps, their wan glow barely illuminating the cobblestones.
The noise settles as milkshakes and colas clink against Irish coffees, and chairs scrape against the black-and-white tiled floor.
Berlin hammers a spoon against the bar and calls out with his lion tamer's bark, "Raise your glasses, ladies and gentlemen, and send off our old King to Davy Jones's Locker."
"He'll meet many of our men down there," replies Old Ismail, "he better write his apologies on the way down."
"I b-b-b-et he wr-wr-wr-ote them on his d-d-d-eathbed," a punter cackles.
Through the rock 'n' roll and spitting espresso machine Berlin hears someone calling his name. "Maxa tiri ? " he asks as Mahmood Mattan pushes through the crowd at the bar.
"I said, get me another coffee."
Berlin catches his Trinidadian wife's waist and steers her towards Mahmood. "Lou, sort this troublemaker another coffee."
Ranged along the bar are many of Tiger Bay's Somali sailors; they look somewhere between gangsters and dandies in their cravats, pocket chains and trilby hats. Only Mahmood wears a homburg pulled down low over his gaunt face and sad eyes. He is a quiet man, always appearing and disappearing silently, at the fringes of the sailors or the gamblers or the thieves. Men pull their possessions closer when he is around and keep their eyes on his long, elegant fingers, but Tahir Gass-who was only recently released from Whit church asylum-leans close to him, looking for friendship that Mahmood won't give. Tahir is on a road no one can or will walk down with him, his limbs spasming from invisible electric shocks, his face a cinema screen of wild expressions.
"Independence any day now." Ismail gulps from his mug and smiles. "India is gone, what can they say to the rest?"
Berlin makes his eyes bold. "They say we got you by the balls, darkie! We own your land, your trains, your rivers, your schools, the coffee grains at the bottom of your cup. You see what they do to the Mau Mau and all the Kikuyu in Kenya? Lock them up, man and child."
Mahmood takes his espresso from Lou and smirks at the exchange; he cares nothing for politics. While trying to straighten his cufflinks a drop of coffee runs over the rim and falls on to his brightly polished shoes. Grabbing a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, he wipes it off and buffs the stain away. The brogues are new and as black and sharp as Newfoundland coal, better shoes than any other fella here has on his feet. Three £1 notes burn away in his pocket, ready for a poker game; saved through missed lunches and nights spent without the fire, mummified in his blankets. Leaning over the bar, he nudges Ismail. "Billa Khan coming tonight?"
"Me come from the jungle? I wish I come from the jungle! I said to him, look around you, this is the jungle, you got bushes and trees everywhere, in my country nothing grows." Ismail finishes his joke and then turns to Mahmood. "How would I know? Ask one of your crooks."
Kissing his teeth, Mahmood throws the espresso down his throat and grabs his fawn mackintosh before stalking through the crowd and out of the door.
The cold air hits his face like a spade, and despite urgently forcing the jacket around his body the bitter February night takes hold of him and makes his teeth chatter. A grey smudge hovers over everything he sees, the result of a hot chink of coal flying from a furnace and into his right eye. A pain so pure that it had hoisted him up and backwards on to the cooling clinkers behind his feet. The clatter of shovels and devil's picks as the other stokers came to his aid, their hands tearing his fingers from his face. His tears had distorted their familiar faces, their eyes the only bright spots in the gloomy engine room, the emergency alarm clattering as the chief engineer's boots marched down the steel staircase. Afterwards, two weeks in a hospital in Hamburg with a fat bandage wrapped around his head.
That smudge and a bad back are the only physical remnants of his sea life. He hasn't boarded a ship for near to three years; just foundry work and poky little boilers in prisons and hospitals. The sea still calls, though, just as loudly as the gulls surfing the sky above him, but there is Laura and the boys to anchor him here. Boys who look Somali despite their mother's Welsh blood, who cling to his legs calling "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" and pull his head down, mussing up his pomaded hair for forceful kisses that leave his cheeks smelling of sherbe...
[ One ]
Tiger Bay, February 1952
The King is dead. Long live the Queen." The announcer's voice crackles from the wireless and winds around the rapt patrons of Berlin's Milk Bar as sinuously as the fog curls around the mournful street lamps, their wan glow barely illuminating the cobblestones.
The noise settles as milkshakes and colas clink against Irish coffees, and chairs scrape against the black-and-white tiled floor.
Berlin hammers a spoon against the bar and calls out with his lion tamer's bark, "Raise your glasses, ladies and gentlemen, and send off our old King to Davy Jones's Locker."
"He'll meet many of our men down there," replies Old Ismail, "he better write his apologies on the way down."
"I b-b-b-et he wr-wr-wr-ote them on his d-d-d-eathbed," a punter cackles.
Through the rock 'n' roll and spitting espresso machine Berlin hears someone calling his name. "Maxa tiri ? " he asks as Mahmood Mattan pushes through the crowd at the bar.
"I said, get me another coffee."
Berlin catches his Trinidadian wife's waist and steers her towards Mahmood. "Lou, sort this troublemaker another coffee."
Ranged along the bar are many of Tiger Bay's Somali sailors; they look somewhere between gangsters and dandies in their cravats, pocket chains and trilby hats. Only Mahmood wears a homburg pulled down low over his gaunt face and sad eyes. He is a quiet man, always appearing and disappearing silently, at the fringes of the sailors or the gamblers or the thieves. Men pull their possessions closer when he is around and keep their eyes on his long, elegant fingers, but Tahir Gass-who was only recently released from Whit church asylum-leans close to him, looking for friendship that Mahmood won't give. Tahir is on a road no one can or will walk down with him, his limbs spasming from invisible electric shocks, his face a cinema screen of wild expressions.
"Independence any day now." Ismail gulps from his mug and smiles. "India is gone, what can they say to the rest?"
Berlin makes his eyes bold. "They say we got you by the balls, darkie! We own your land, your trains, your rivers, your schools, the coffee grains at the bottom of your cup. You see what they do to the Mau Mau and all the Kikuyu in Kenya? Lock them up, man and child."
Mahmood takes his espresso from Lou and smirks at the exchange; he cares nothing for politics. While trying to straighten his cufflinks a drop of coffee runs over the rim and falls on to his brightly polished shoes. Grabbing a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, he wipes it off and buffs the stain away. The brogues are new and as black and sharp as Newfoundland coal, better shoes than any other fella here has on his feet. Three £1 notes burn away in his pocket, ready for a poker game; saved through missed lunches and nights spent without the fire, mummified in his blankets. Leaning over the bar, he nudges Ismail. "Billa Khan coming tonight?"
"Me come from the jungle? I wish I come from the jungle! I said to him, look around you, this is the jungle, you got bushes and trees everywhere, in my country nothing grows." Ismail finishes his joke and then turns to Mahmood. "How would I know? Ask one of your crooks."
Kissing his teeth, Mahmood throws the espresso down his throat and grabs his fawn mackintosh before stalking through the crowd and out of the door.
The cold air hits his face like a spade, and despite urgently forcing the jacket around his body the bitter February night takes hold of him and makes his teeth chatter. A grey smudge hovers over everything he sees, the result of a hot chink of coal flying from a furnace and into his right eye. A pain so pure that it had hoisted him up and backwards on to the cooling clinkers behind his feet. The clatter of shovels and devil's picks as the other stokers came to his aid, their hands tearing his fingers from his face. His tears had distorted their familiar faces, their eyes the only bright spots in the gloomy engine room, the emergency alarm clattering as the chief engineer's boots marched down the steel staircase. Afterwards, two weeks in a hospital in Hamburg with a fat bandage wrapped around his head.
That smudge and a bad back are the only physical remnants of his sea life. He hasn't boarded a ship for near to three years; just foundry work and poky little boilers in prisons and hospitals. The sea still calls, though, just as loudly as the gulls surfing the sky above him, but there is Laura and the boys to anchor him here. Boys who look Somali despite their mother's Welsh blood, who cling to his legs calling "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" and pull his head down, mussing up his pomaded hair for forceful kisses that leave his cheeks smelling of sherbe...
