Thursday, April 14, 2022

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed

Sometimes it is difficult to understand when someone calls somebody fortunate. The idea of possession of something or absence of calamities viewed by others can be called fortune while this "fortunate" person may have different thoughts altogether.

It is a story of a Somali seamen in Cardiff. A family man who finds himself on the wrong side of the law for a crime that he claims to be not guilty of.

The story is set in 1950s and it is easy to claim that things are different now if not better. But this for someone to say who is on the receiving end. The partial blindness of justice which overlooks a lot things can drag people down even today.

I started on this one without any thought, and slowly it turned into a crime thriller with some philosophy thrown in. It tried to be all the things at one time and kind of failed on all of them. The last 100 pages were real stretch and not because it was going in rounds but this could have said more substantial things without a lot of white noise.

It is too innocent a thought to believe that there are no more Mahmood's in our time but unfortunately the victims of prejudice, greed, hate or simple stupidity are all around us. They will never be loud enough to be heard by all but those dreamers, who fought against everything but failed to see the end because it was not the end which they dreamed of, will keep coming.

Love

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