Mona Arshi's debut poetry collection, Small Hands, won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2015. Her second collection, Dear Big Gods, was published in 2019 and her novel Somebody Loves You in 2021; the latter was shortlisted for the Goldsmith Prize. She has been appointed as Honorary Professor at the University of Liverpool and Fellow in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and is also co-editor of an anthology of nature poetry, Nature Matters, which will be published in 2025. Prior to her career in poetry, she worked as a human rights lawyer, often representing refugees and women fleeing domestic violence.