A review by absolutive
The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed

adventurous dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

In this novel of a real-life case of a Somali-British man who was executed for a crime he did not commit, Nadifa Mohamed brings to life Cardiff's Tiger Bay, a community of Black, Muslim, Jewish, immigrant, British people scraping by just after the Second World War. Mohamed provides us with a flawed hero; he is innocent of the particular crime, but he is a petty thief who has committed other, smaller crimes. He is captured in all his "greed, lust, courage, restlessness and sacrifice"--and, I would add, pride. The book's treatment of its Jewish community, a community scarred by its relation to Jews who died in the Holocaust, is a surprising strength. Looking for safety and comfort and trying to build a life in difficult circumstances, the family of the Jewish shopkeeper who is murdered mirrors, in some ways, the Somali man who did not kill her. The Jews in this book have been subjected to British Antisemitism, just as the Somalis know that, had they been born with white skin they would know "British justice." The novel is an effective look at the history of institutional racism that haunts this country, with resonances today, though carefully controlled and placed in the 1950s context.
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