Nguyen Phan Que Mai was born in 1973 in a small village in northern Vietnam, and grew up in the Mekong Delta, in southern Vietnam. She studied in Australia under a development scholarship from the Australian Government.  Nguyen currently lives in Hanoi and works with UN organizations to promote communications for sustainable development. She is the author of two poetry collections and the translator of six books of poetry., For her poetry she has received many honors, including an award from the youth newspaper Story about My Life in a writing competition (2007), an award from the Vietnamese Writers Association for outstanding contribution to the advancement of Vietnamese literature overseas (2010), the Poetry of the Year Award from the Hanoi Writers Association (2010), first prize in a poetry competition about Hanoi from the Vietnam Writers Association, Literature Newspaper, and Hanoi Television (2010), and an award from the Vietnam Writers Association, Literature Newspaper. and Hanoi Television for the translation of the poem “In Hanoi, Again,” by J. Fossenbell (2010).