Ilka Papp-Zakor was born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and it was also there that at four-years-old she completed her first text – it was a lullaby for a mouse. She studied Russian and Hungarian philology in Cluj-Napoca, and after earning an MA in Hungarian, she moved to Helsinki, Finland, where she semi-officially attended biology courses at the local university and trained rats. Her first book, the short story collection titled Angel Dinner, won the JAK-kendő Award and was published in 2015. She currently lives in Budapest, Hungary.