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In 1952, Somali seaman Mahmood Mattan, convicted of the murder of a local shopkeeper, became the last man to be hanged in Cardiff. Forty-five years later, his conviction was quashed. In The Fortune Men, the British-Somali writer Nadifa Mohamed takes this true story and gives it a novel treatment. Amongst the bustling, multiracial town of Tiger Bay, we meet Mattan, a man of quiet dignity and anger, and the corrupt and racist police who frame him for murder. Mohamed also paints a sympathetic portrait of the murder victim, here renamed Violet Volacki. Nadifa Mohamed is speaking to Claire Nichols.
By ABC4.9
1212 ratings
In 1952, Somali seaman Mahmood Mattan, convicted of the murder of a local shopkeeper, became the last man to be hanged in Cardiff. Forty-five years later, his conviction was quashed. In The Fortune Men, the British-Somali writer Nadifa Mohamed takes this true story and gives it a novel treatment. Amongst the bustling, multiracial town of Tiger Bay, we meet Mattan, a man of quiet dignity and anger, and the corrupt and racist police who frame him for murder. Mohamed also paints a sympathetic portrait of the murder victim, here renamed Violet Volacki. Nadifa Mohamed is speaking to Claire Nichols.

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