# The Fortune Men (2021) by Nadifa Mohamed: the story of Mahmood Mattan

> Nadifa Mohamed's The Fortune Men (2021): the true story of Mahmood Mattan, hanged in Cardiff in 1952 and cleared in 1998; Booker shortlist and reviews.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/books/the-fortune-men-mohamed/
Last checked: 2026-11-12
Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com)

## The book

**The Fortune Men** is the third novel by [Nadifa Mohamed](/en/people/nadifa-mohamed/), published by Viking (Penguin) in the UK on 27 May 2021 ([The Fortune Men, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_Men)).

## The true story behind it

The novel is based on the case of **[Mahmood Hussein Mattan](/en/people/mahmood-hussein-mattan/)**, a Somali former merchant seaman living in Butetown (Tiger Bay), Cardiff. He was convicted of the murder of the shopkeeper Lily Volpert on 6 March 1952 and hanged; he was the last person hanged at Cardiff prison. In 1998 the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction after it was shown that evidence had been falsified and manipulated ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_Men)). In the novel the victim is renamed Violet Volacki.

Nadifa Mohamed's father, also from [Somaliland](/en/states/somaliland-1991-to-2026/), had met Mattan when both lived in Hull ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_Men)). The history of Somali seamen in Wales is on [Somali seamen and early migrants](/en/diaspora/somali-seamen-and-early-migrants/) and [Cardiff](/en/diaspora/cardiff/).

## How it was received

- Shortlisted for the **2021 Booker Prize** ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_Men)).
- Won the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award, the People's Choice Award and the overall **Wales Book of the Year** in 2022 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_Men)).
- In The Guardian, Ashish Ghadiali wrote that it "confirms her as a literary star of her generation", and Michael Donkor praised it for "humanising" Mattan and for writing about his faith in "delicate and perspicacious prose" ([Wikipedia, citing The Guardian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_Men)).
- In the Financial Times, Catherine Taylor called it "a novel on fire, a restitution of justice in prose" ([Wikipedia, citing the Financial Times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_Men)).

## Where to read it

- In a library: [WorldCat](https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=The+Fortune+Men+Nadifa+Mohamed)
- Audiobook read by Hugh Quarshie, from Penguin ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_Men))

## Related pages

- [Nadifa Mohamed](/en/people/nadifa-mohamed/)
- [Black Mamba Boy (2010)](/en/books/black-mamba-boy-mohamed/)
- [Somali authors and their books](/en/society/somali-authors-and-their-books/)

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