Mónica Rodríguez was born in Oviedo in 1969. She is a writer and has a degree in physical sciences and a master’s in nuclear energy. In 2009 she left her job at Ciernat to devote herself full-time to children’s and YA fiction. She has published over thirty books and won numerous awards, the most recent of which are the Fundación Cuatrogatos (Fourcats Foundation) prize for The Circle of Oaks, the 13th Anaya prize for children’s and YA fiction for Alma and the Island, and the Alandar prize 2016 for YA novels for The Score. Her book The Orange that Died of Sadness is one of three finalists for the 2017 Hache prize.