Mona Arshi

Mona Arshi is a British poet.^[1] She won the Forward Prize, Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection in 2015 for her work Small Hands.^[2]

She was educated at Lampton Comprehensive School In Hounslow. She studied at Guildford College of Law and University College London where she obtained a Masters In human rights law in 2002.She worked for several years as a litigator at Liberty, the Human Rights Organisation. She acted on many high-profile judicial review cases including Diane Pretty’s ‘right to die’ case, asylum destitution cases and death in custody cases.

She began writing poetry in 2008 and then went on study creative writing (Poetry) at the University of East Anglia (MA Creative Writing, 2010). Whilst she was studying for her masters she won first prize in the inaugural Magma poetry competition for her poem 'Hummingbird'.Then she then went on to become prize winner in the Troubadour International Competition in 2013 for her poem 'Bad Day in the Office'. In 2014 she was joint winner in the Manchester creative writing competition with a portfolio of five poems. In 2015 she published her first collection of poems 'Small Hands' with Pavilion Poetry a new poetry press from the Liverpool University Press under the editorship of Deryn Rees Jones.

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