Dulce Chacón was born on June 6 1954 in Zafra, Badajoz. At the age of 12 she moved to Madrid with her family after her father’s death. During the Franco dictatorship she fought against capital punishment. She was part of the ‘Plataforma de Mujeres Artistas contra la Violencia de Género’ [Women Artists’ Platform Against Gender-Based Violence]. She dealt with this theme in her first novel. She was also part of 'Mujeres contra la guerra' [Women against the war] and travelled to Irak with a number of women from around the world to protest against Bush’s decision to go to war. She started writing at an early age even though she did not publish until 1992 when her book of poetry Querrán ponerle nombre appeared. In 1996 she published her first novel, Algún amor que no mate. In 2002 she published her book La voz dormida [The sleeping voice] which presents the fictionalised reality of women imprisoned in the prison of Ventas in Madrid after the Civil War. This novel won the Book of the Year Prize in 2002. She died on 3 December 2005 at the age of 49.