A Convenient Conviction
Nadifa Mohamed's Booker Prize-nominated "The Fortune Men" is based on the true story of a man wrongfully convicted of murder and executed in Cardiff, Wales in 1952. Mahmood Mattan was a Somali sailor and small-time thief who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong color of skin. Violet Volacki, a 40 year old Jewish shopkeeper, had her throat slit one night as her family was in the other room. There were no true witnesses, Mahmood had alibis, and any evidence against him was as flimsy as it was convenient for the police.
The opening of the book illustrates the port of Cardiff in colorful detail. Mahmood roams the streets and is portrayed as a mysterious and slightly unsavory character. Once he is arrested, though, we gravitate toward him. He is rebellious and snaps at the police-- he knows he is innocent, after all. At his core is the central belief that truth has to win out. Later, once he clearly sees the writing on the wall, he shows his concern and love for his three young sons when he makes his wife promise to nurture the account that their father had simply been lost at sea, thus sparing any further disgrace.
In 1998, forty-six years after Mahmood's hanging, the British courts overturned his conviction. It was determined that the one witness putting him at the scene of the crime had been pressured by the police and lured by the promise of a reward. Mahmood's name was finally cleared, if decades too late for him or his family.
"The Fortune Men" arrives with every historical spoiler alert. The man is executed in one of history's more notorious injustices. The magic of the book lies in Nadifa Mohamed's vivid depiction of the people whose lives were sucked into this tragedy.
Nadifa Mohamed's Booker Prize-nominated "The Fortune Men" is based on the true story of a man wrongfully convicted of murder and executed in Cardiff, Wales in 1952. Mahmood Mattan was a Somali sailor and small-time thief who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong color of skin. Violet Volacki, a 40 year old Jewish shopkeeper, had her throat slit one night as her family was in the other room. There were no true witnesses, Mahmood had alibis, and any evidence against him was as flimsy as it was convenient for the police.
The opening of the book illustrates the port of Cardiff in colorful detail. Mahmood roams the streets and is portrayed as a mysterious and slightly unsavory character. Once he is arrested, though, we gravitate toward him. He is rebellious and snaps at the police-- he knows he is innocent, after all. At his core is the central belief that truth has to win out. Later, once he clearly sees the writing on the wall, he shows his concern and love for his three young sons when he makes his wife promise to nurture the account that their father had simply been lost at sea, thus sparing any further disgrace.
In 1998, forty-six years after Mahmood's hanging, the British courts overturned his conviction. It was determined that the one witness putting him at the scene of the crime had been pressured by the police and lured by the promise of a reward. Mahmood's name was finally cleared, if decades too late for him or his family.
"The Fortune Men" arrives with every historical spoiler alert. The man is executed in one of history's more notorious injustices. The magic of the book lies in Nadifa Mohamed's vivid depiction of the people whose lives were sucked into this tragedy.
