Carlo Frabetti was born in Bologna (Italy) in 1945. A mathematician and member of the New York Academy of Sciences, he has published over a hundred titles on various subjects, several of them on recreational mathematics and logic puzzles and many of them aimed at children and young adults. He has written, created and directed numerous TV programmes such as The crystal ball (La bola de cristal), The elf with the balloon (El duende del globo) and Tendencies (Tendencias). He has also written several plays and created and directed various popular science collections for children and young people. In 1998 he was awarded the Jaén Prize for Literature for Children and Young Adults, while in 2007 he won the El Barco de Vapor Prize for his work Calvina. He also won the Catholic Childhood Commission Prize, the UNEAC (Union of Cuban Writers and Artists) Prize and the Cervantes Chico Prize (in 2019) for his work over the course of his career.