Santiago Alba Rico is a writer and essayist. After studying philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid, he became the screenwriter of the legendary 80s television program "La Bola de Cristal" (The Crystal Ball), and has published more than twenty books on politics, philosophy and literature, as well as three children’s tales and a play. Since 1988 he has lived in the Arab world, translated the Egyptian poet Naguib Surur, and the Iraqi novelist Mohammed Jydair into Spanish. He regularly collaborates with different media (Público, Cuarto Poder, CTXT, Atlántica XXII and others). He is a former advisor of Podemos and was a Podemos candidate to the Senate.