Virtually Yours #11 Nadifa Mohamed
A series of online discussions – Virtual Gatherings - with honoured author, Zukiswa Wanner, through which she explores contemporary African literature with authors
Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, 1952, which bustles with Somali and West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. He is a father, chancer, petty criminal. He is a smooth-talker with rakish charm and an eye for a good game. He is many things, but he is not a murderer. So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all eyes fall on him, Mahmood isn't too worried. Since his Welsh wife Laura kicked him out for racking up debts he has wandered the streets more often, and there are witnesses who allegedly saw him enter the shop that night. But Mahmood has escaped worse scrapes, and he is innocent in this country where justice is served. Love lends him immunity too: the fierce love of Laura, who forgives his gambling in a heartbeat, and his children. It is only in the run-up to the trial, as the prospect of returning home dwindles, that it will dawn on Mahmood that he is in a fight for his life - against conspiracy, prejudice and cruelty - and that the truth may not be enough to save him.
Nadifa Mohamed is a British-Somali author and journalist, born in Somaliland in 1981 she grew up in the UK. Her first novel, Black Mamba Boy, won the Betty Trask Prize; was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize and the PEN Open Book Award. Her second novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls, won a Somerset Maugham Prize and was longlisted for The Dylan Thomas Prize. The Fortune Men was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021. Nadifa was selected for the Granta Best of Young British Novelists. She lives in London.
If you missed the session, you can watch the record here> Virtually Yours #11.
