Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm. To order this title or any other book in print, visit .uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Viking 384pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 The Week Bookshop The Fortune Men is a “novel on fire, a restitution of justice in prose”. “That it isn’t is something of a triumph.”Īs it moves “faultlessly from the cacophony of Butetown” to the claustrophobia of Cardiff’s prison, Mohamed’s narrative teems with “life, character and humour”.

Mattan’s story is a “grim, desperate and horribly familiar one”, and the novel could easily have been written in a style to match, said Catherine Taylor in the FT. The result is a moving work that “confirms her as a literary star of her generation”. Using her considerable powers of imagination, Mohamed delivers us deep into Mattan’s “inner world”. It later emerged that police had suppressed evidence that exonerated him, while bribing the main prosecution witness. Nadifa Mohamed’s latest novel, her third, takes one of the United Kingdom’s most notorious miscarriages of justice for its. A haunting tale of miscarried justice, The Fortune Men offers a chilling look at the dark corners of our humanity.A Somali seaman who lived in Butetown, Cardiff, Mattan was hanged, in 1952, for “slitting the throat” of a female pawnbroker. Ap Tyriek Whites debut novel is a triumph its a gorgeous book about loss and survival that gives and gives as it asks us what it means to be part of a family, of a community.

Under the shadow of the hangman's noose, Mahmood begins to realize that even the truth may not be enough to save him. 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. If you liked The Fortune Men, try these: An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie Published 2023 About this book An electrifying debut about a young man faced with a fraught decision: escape a dangerous past alone, or brave his old life and keep the woman he loves. He is a father of three, secure in his innocence and his belief in British justice.īut as the trial draws closer, his prospect for freedom dwindles. 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. The Fortune Men is a historical fiction set in 1950s Cardiff that explores the real and distressing story of Mahmood Mattan, the last innocent man to be.

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. SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE - SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARDīased on a true event, an intimate and harrowing novel about the last man in Cardiff to be sentenced to death.

The fortune men book review