Welcome to Litsy!

A must read! Got this book mostly as I saw a corelation to another nonfiction book I read relating to Maltese involved in vice in both Cardiff and Soho London. (I am Maltese 😂). The other book is Passport to Vice by Matthew Vella.

#25
Very good

16 Jun-16 Jul 2022
#Booker longlist 12
A story of the prejudices and injustices experienced by a Somali living in Wales who is accused of murdering a white woman.
I did not realise this was based on a true story until towards the end. It was a little slow to start but I did warm to Mahood and found myself denying his inevitable fate until the end.

Harrowing, enraging, brilliant. This fictional rendering of the true story of Mahmoud Mattan, a Somali wrongfully hanged for a murder he did not commit, is not an easy read, but it‘s rewards are many.

I think it‘s hard to rate this book. In the beginning, I wanted to DNF this several times because I wasn‘t gripped by the writing and found it confusing. But I always read on, until I was hooked and had to read on. And in the end me crying.

A story about a man accused of murder a women. We get to know the accused Mahmoud, the victim‘s family and the police officer leading the case. This is based on a true story.

p 6 ^^ From Rabelais to Joyce to Perec and beyond, love me a good literary LIST! List of all of the jobs of foreign workers coming to Britain after the war, heaps and heaps of jobs and laborers, is such an effective way of noting dramatic societal change.

Based on true story of Mahmoud Mattan, young Somali sailor falsely accused of violent murder in the 1950s & hanged in Cardiff Prison. Posthumously exonerated. A story of storytelling, how an innocent man is forced into a role, how the justice system reinforces narratives. A distance to the writing that maybe comes from an attempt tell a story from a historical event? But distancing can be like foreigner‘s outsiderness in British society. 2021

My 6th from the Booker longlist. Based on the true story of Mahmood Mattan, a Somali immigrant in Cardiff, executed for a murder he did not commit in 1952, in a horrible trial where his own lawyer called him a savage in court. A gritty dark opening, it becomes something beautiful, transforming for us a sketchy, but innocent, Mattan into someone warm, human, fascinating, and ultimately graceful in the face of the unfathomable.

I never did warm to Mahmood: petty thief, compulsive liar, belligerent, haughty. I bow to Nadifa Mohamed, then, for making a book that it hurt to think about (and think about it I surely did!) as Mahmood's confidence in the British judicial system is eroded and it dawns on him that he is likely to hang for a murder he did not commit.

I couldn‘t get into this. Nicely crafted with a diverse cast of characters, I liked the sense of humanity and compassion. But it was taking too long to get going. I‘m sure it‘s good and worthy of the Booker shortlisting, but I wasn‘t in the mood for another slow and depressing book.

#libraryhaul
Hurray, I collected my reserved book (tagged) that I couldn't get on Friday. It's the first time I've been back inside the local library since it closed for a major refurb in the summer. So many new books! This is what I picked up after ten minutes of browsing. There are many more to return for!

Next off the pile. Started it today.

This book gave me anxiety. It was like reading a book about Amelia Earhart or Anne Boleyn. No matter how much you like the main character, shit is absolutely not going to end well. This is about a Somali man who was wrongly accused of murdering a Jewish female shop keeper in Cardiff. It's very well written. It's just a tough subject.

#BookSpinBingo square 16
@TheAromaofBooks

US pub date is 3/1/2022 (?!)
#Netgalley #Knopf

These are my two most recent Mr B's picks @Mitch
I'm really interested in reading the Herrera one - completely new to me author.

Mahmood is a Somali seaman who lives in Wales, he is married to a white woman, has three children, struggles through racial prejudice, tries to provide for his family, lives his life as best he can ... until he is convicted of a murder. Most remarkable in this book is depiction of Mahmood's naivety, his trust in the judiciary - the truth always wins, and the strongest point of this narrative, seems to me, is clash between Mahmood as he … 👇

#bookerlonglist

A very clever, beautifully written, novelised version of the wrongful imprisonment of Somali Mahmoud Mattan in 1950s Cardiff.

It took a while for the story to get going and, having said all of the above, it was too dark and depressing for me to say I enjoyed it.

This may work for those of you doing #readingafrica2022 - only one chapter is actually set in #somalia but the author is Somali and it very much covers Somali life.

Mohamed‘s story explores the immigrant experience in mid-century Britain and the pervasiveness of systemic racism. The wrongful conviction at the centre is not only built on the blindness of the system to justice, but on the lies of so many different members of a community. The characterisation of the flawed victim was a particular standout for me. Although not perfectly executed, I thought it was an original, interesting, affecting novel.

"Sometimes, I wake up and I don't know where I am... It's a strange, strange feeling. I hear the warders pacing past my cell at night, looking in at me in bed, and I think it's my mother coming to check on me and that I must close my eyes. It's made me wonder about Tahir, you know? How sometimes he looked at his hands with such shock, as if he couldn't believe they belonged to him. I can see how men go mad....

Some of these sailors return with such good fortune, son, and I hope that one day it will be you stepping out of a car with your suit cases and children and happy wife.
Now, nabadgelyo iyo safar salaama. Your mother.'

Berlin folds the letter and pushes it under Mahmood's nose.
'Some men may call themselves poets but your mother is the real article."
'She uses words like arrows.'
Poetry is war, what else you expect?'
'A truce.'

#BookerLonglist reading with a side order of Olympic gymnastics