Berta Vias Mahou was born in Madrid in 1961 and is an Ancient History graduate. She has translated Ödön von Horváth, Stefan Zweig, Arthur Schnitzler, Joseph Roth and Goethe, and among her work includes the novel Leo en la cama (Leo in the Bed, 1999), the essay La imagen de la mujer en la literatura (The Representation of Women in Literature, 2000), the collection of short stories Ladera norte (Northern Hillside, Acantilado, 2001) and the novel Los pozos de la nieve (Wells of Snow, Acantilado, 2008), which was critically judged to be one of the best novels of 2008.