Published in 2021
176 pages
Mona Arshi was born in West London, where she still lives. She worked as a human rights lawyer with Liberty for a decade before receiving a master’s in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. Her debut poetry collection Small Hands was published in 2015, winning the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Mona Arshi regularly appears on BBC Radio 4. Her poems have been published in The Sunday Times, The Guardian and the Times of India and most recently the London Underground.
What is this book about?
A teacher asked me a question, and I opened my mouth as a sort of formality but closed it softly, knowing with perfect certainty that nothing would ever come out again.
Ruby gives up talking at a young age. Her mother isn’t always there to notice; she comes and goes and goes and comes, until, one day, she doesn’t. Silence becomes Ruby’s refuge, sheltering her from the weather of her mother’s mental illness and a pressurized suburban atmosphere.
Plangent, deft, and sparkling with humour, Somebody Loves You is the fiction debut from Forward Prize-winning poet Mona Arshi, and a moving exploration of how we choose or refuse to tell the stories that shape us.
