Iván Thays was born in Lima in 1968. He has over thirty years of teaching experience at universities, writing centers, reading workshops, and personal narrative mentoring. He is the author of several novels such as El viaje interior (1999), La disciplina de la vanidad (2000), and Un lugar llamado Oreja de perro (2018), which was a finalist for the Herralde Novel Prize and has been translated into French, Italian, and Portuguese. He won the Prince Claus Award in 2001, directed the television program Vano Oficio for seven years, and managed one of the most famous literary blogs in Latin America during the 2000s, called Moleskine Literario. Currently, he lives in Philadelphia, is a podcaster, and a creative writing professor.