Mona Arshi was born in London in 1970 and worked as a human rights lawyer before becoming a poet. Her debut collection, Small Hands (Pavilion Poetry), won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2015.
Her first novel, Somebody Loves You (And Other Stories), is shortlisted for the 2022 Goldsmiths Prize. It is written from the perspective of Ruby, the daughter of Indian migrants to suburban Britain. She has decided not to speak. “Everything worth saying can be written on your fingernail or on the seam of an unshelled almond,” she explains. In a series of short vignettes, the reader follows Ruby’s time at school – where she navigates difficult teenage friendships – and her home life – where her mother is mentally ill but finds solace in gardening. In lean yet exacting prose, Arshi interrogates not only the power of silence, but also the adequacy of language to communicate during life’s toughest moments.
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