Carol Zardetto belongs to the generation of Guatemalan writers that grew up under the shadow of the civil war in Guatemala. She occupied public posts as vice-minister of Education and Consul General in Vancouver, Canada. She writes short stories and literary and political essays. She has also written plays and theater criticism in the Guatemalan newspaper Siglo XXI.
Since 2007, she has worked as a political columnist for El Periódico, a Guatemalan newspaper. She has written scripts for several documentaries. La Flor del Café was nominated for a best documentary award at the Ícaro International Film Festival in 2010. Con Pasión Absoluta, her first novel, received the 2004 Mario Monteforte Toledo Central American Novel Award. Her second book, El discurso del Loco, cuentos del Tarot, a collection of short stories, was published in 2009. In 2011 she created a libretto for the Guatemalan opera Tatuana. Her most recent novels Nueva York and Benevolente y La Noche de las Ranas (2014) are pending publication.