Marvel Moreno was born in Barranquilla, the capital city of the Atlántico department of Colombia, in 1939. As a teenager, under her father’s guidance, she began to read the great writers, many of whom would later come to bear a definitive influence upon her writing: Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner among them. Moreno maintained a close relationship with the members of the “Barranquilla Group,” including Gabriel García Márquez. She is well known in Colombia and is considered one of the most important Colombian writers. Her novel December Breeze was a finalist in the Plaza y Janés International Literary Prize in 1985. In 1989, Moreno received the Grinzane-Cavour prize awarded in Italy for best foreign book. She died in 1995 in Paris.