Belén Gopegui burst onto the Spanish literary scene in 1993, bowling over critics with her debut, La escala de los mapas [The Scale of Maps, City Lights, 2011], which was hailed as a masterpiece. She has since published six more novels, stories, young people’s fiction, and screenplays, and several of her books have been adapted for cinema.  Gopegui was born, and lives in, Madrid, Spain.