In Mona Arshi’s debut novel, which has been shortlisted for the Goldsmiths prize (the winner is announced next week), a British-Indian girl named Ruby suddenly stops speaking. She recalls how, after a teacher asked her a question at school, “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 is tested for aural dysfunction, assorted viruses and “general stupidity”, and shrugs off the efforts of peers, teachers and her therapist to make her talk. As she moves up to secondary school, her father anxiously suggests she take the opportunity to reinvent herself by finally engaging in conversation. But still, she remains silent.
Arshi, a poet and former human rights lawyer, is the silky-voiced narrator of this vivid coming-of-age tale; her reading is tender, thoughtful and full of heart. Through Ruby’s child’s-eye view, we learn her mother has had a mental breakdown which occurred the same day that her sister, Rania, found a fox cub and tried to bring it into the house. Ruby also mourns the loss of her pen-pal, Clare, after Clare’s father found out his daughter’s correspondent had brown skin.
