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 pressurised 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.