From the evocative portrayal of 1950s Cardiff to its multiple perspective, use our questions to guide your reading of The Fortune Men, described by the judges as ‘a story as local as it is exhilaratingly global’.
The Fortune Men
Written by Nadifa Mohamed
- Shortlisted
- The Booker Prize 2021
- Published by Viking
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Nadifa Mohamed’s gripping novel about a petty criminal in Cardiff who becomes the last man to be hanged there, wrongfully convicted of murder in 1952
Mahmood Mattan is a father, a chancer, a petty thief. 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 - secure in his innocence in a country where justice is served. But as the trial nears, it starts to dawn on him that he is in a fight for his life - against conspiracy, prejudice and the ultimate punishment. In the shadow of the hangman’s noose, he realises that the truth may not be enough to save him.
Nadifa Mohamed
With her third novel –The Fortune Men – Nadifa Mohamed becomes the first British Somali novelist to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize
More about Nadifa Mohamed Video highlights
Listen to an extract from The Fortune Men
Hugh Quarshie, known for roles in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and Holby City, brings The Fortune Men to life.
Penguin Books UK · The Fortune Men - Extract
The story of Mahmood Mattan
The Fortune Men is a fictionalisation of the story of Mahmood Mattan, who in 1952 became the last man hanged at Cardiff Prison in Wales.
In 1998 – 45 years later – his conviction and hanging was overturned.
Journalist Safia Mohamed looks at the story of Mattan and of the Somali community’s history in Wales, where he lived.
A group of Somalians meet for a drink and a smoke at a cafe in Bute Town or ‘Tiger Bay’, Cardiff, April 22 1950.
© Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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