The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed - #bookreview

 

'The King is dead. Love live the Queen.' The announcers 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.'

***

Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, 1952, which bustles with Somali and West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. He is a father, chancer, some-time petty thief. He is many things, in fact, but he is not a murderer.

So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all eyes fall on him, Mahmood isn't too worried. It is true that he has been getting into trouble more often since his Welsh wife Laura left him. But Mahmood is secure in his innocence in a country where, he thinks, justice is served.

It is only in the run-up to the trial, as the prospect of freedom dwindles, that it will dawn on Mahmood that he is in a terrifying fight for his life - against conspiracy, prejudice and the inhumanity of the state. And, under the shadow of the hangman's noose, he begins to realise that the truth may not be enough to save him.

***

This compelling novel, which is based on factual events, is an outstanding book and one of the best I have read this year. Set in 1950's Tiger Bay, Cardiff it exudes with atmosphere and highlights the racial injustice suffered by the main character, Mahmood Mattan and his contemporaries.

I particularly enjoyed reading about this melting pot of characters who have settled in Tiger Bay from other parts of the world. This mixture of nationalities and faiths culminated in the occurrence of racial tensions, and it was this that led Mahmood to come to be in the position he did.

This character driven novel permits the reader to follow Mahmood through his time living and working in Tiger Bay, to his imprisonment for a murder which he did not commit. Despite his life experience, Mahmood seemed to have a naivety about him and had complete faith that the British justice system would come to recognise the truth of his situation.

I found this to be a heartbreaking read, written with sensitivity, intelligence and humanity. It was a calm, appropriately paced, devastating novel.

Every now and then, a novel comes along which I feel privileged to have read. This was one such book and I applaud the author for bringing this miscarriage of justice to prominence in the form of her novel.

It is no surprise to discover that the book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Costa Novel Award in 2021, as well as the Wales Book of the Year Award in 2022.

I can foresee myself re-reading this book again in the future, and I most definitely want to read other titles from Ms. Mohamed.

I thoroughly recommend that you read this book and hope that you enjoy the reading experience as much as I did.

ISBN: 978 0241466957

Publisher:  Viking

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  384 (paperback)

Purchase from Bookshop.org

About the Author:

Nadifa Mohamed was born in Hargeisa (now in the Republic of Somaliland) in 1981 and moved as a child to England in 1986, staying permanently when war broke out in Somalia.

She lives in London and her first novel, Black Mamba Boy, based on her father's memories of his travels in the 1930s, was published in 2010. It was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Dylan Thomas Prize and shortlisted for the John Llewellyn-Rhys Memorial Prize and the Guardian First Book Award. It won the 2010 Betty Trask Prize.

(author photo and bio. info. courtesy of GoodReads)