Chantal Maillard is a poet, translator and essayist. She has won the National Poetry Prize (for Matar a Platón (‘Killing Plato’, 2004) and the National Critics’ Prize (for Hilos (‘Threads’, 2005). Her latest essays La compasión difícil (‘Difficult Compassion’), La Mujer de pie (‘The Standing Woman’) and Las Venas del Dragón (‘The Dragon’s Veins’) were published by Galaxia Gutenberg to critical acclaim. She was born in Brussels in 1951 and lived there until the age of thirteen. In 1969 she obtained Spanish nationality and later earned a PhD in philosophy, specialising in Indian religions and philosophies, from the University of Benares. She taught philosophy of art and aesthetics at the University of Málaga. In 2000 her academic career was disrupted by aggressive treatment for a serious illness. From that point, writing became her salvation and, in her own words, “the quickest way to move me”.