Mona Arshi poetry

About Mona Arshi

Mona Arshi worked as a Human rights lawyer at Liberty before she started writing. She worked on several high-profile legal cases, including the Stephen Lawrence case, representing Janet Alder and Diane Pretty. She also represented women fleeing violence in homes as well as refugees whilst in private practice.

She studied poetry at the University of East Anglia and her debut collection 'Small Hands' won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2015. Her debut collection 'Small Hands' won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2015. Her second collection Dear Big Gods was published in 2019 (both books published by Liverpool University Press's Pavilion Poetry list). Her writing has been featured in The Times, The Guardian, Granta, The Yale Review and The Times of India as well as on the London Underground.

She was a writer in Residence at Cley Marshes in Norfolk, and during lockdown, she spent time in the area working on poems about birds that were transformed into digital assets and embedded in the landscape. In 2020, she was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Liverpool and was a fellow in the creative arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, until 2024. Her novel Somebody Loves You was published by And Other Stories and was shortlisted for the Goldsmith Prize and Jhalak Prizes. Mona is co-editor of an anthology, Nature Matters, published by Faber in May 2025. Her third collection of poetry Mouth will be published by Chatto and Windus in July 2025.

Mona makes regular appearances on the radio including Front Row and was commissioned to write a modern episode for The Odyssey for 'Book of the week', Radio 4.

Mona has worked as a tutor for the Arvon Foundation and The Poetry School. She has judged the National Poetry Competition, The Forward Prize, the TS Eliot awards and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. Mona is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.