Maayan Ben Hagai was born in Kib­butz Dega­nia Bet in 1970. She is a social work­er and owns a book­store in a mobile truck, Astro­nau­tit, which she takes to var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties on the week­ends. She has pub­lished two nov­els, short sto­ries and a book for youth, Gudai, which she wrote with Zaha­va Goshen. She lives in Jerusalem with her three daugh­ters.

In 2016, Maayan received the Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion’s Award for Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture for Gudai.