Isabel Pérez Montalbán is a contemporary Spanish poet, author of fifteen collections of verse, and the recipient of multiple literary awards including the Premio Internacional de Poesía (2019). Born in Córdoba in 1964, Pérez Montalbán was raised in extreme poverty, and suffered a difficult childhood and adolescence. When she was just three years old, her mother committed suicide, her alcoholic father abandoned his six children, and they spent years separated in many abusive foster homes. Four of her five siblings eventually succumbed to mental illness. Pérez Montalbán learned to read at the age of three and began to write stories at the age of six and poems when she was thirteen. A collection of poems she wrote between the ages of 16 and 21 titled No es precisa la muerte (Death is Uncertain; Ayuntamiento de Málaga) won a local chapbook competition and marked the beginning of her poetic career. She is the founder in Spain of a subgenre of poetry titled “Poetry of Conscience” and has made it her mission to address universal themes like poverty, injustice, inequity, and exploitation.