Maya Arad was born in Israel in 1971 and grew up in Kibbutz Nahal-Oz. She graduated in classics and linguistics at the Tel Aviv University and has a Ph.D. in linguistics from London University. Her first book, Another Place, a Foreign City, a novel in rhymes, won the Ministry of Education and Culture award and in 2005 was Shortlisted for the Sapir prize (the Israeli Booker). In 2006 it was performed as a play at the Cameri Theater. Her Seven Moral Failings was published in 2006.