Leyla Cardena was born in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1990. Cardena hails from a literary family; her grandfather was a poet who battled against Franco in Spain and against the Nazis. As an adolescent, she considered herself an outsider and a tomboy, and found it difficult to fit in at school; instead, she found solace in old movies, furtive cigarettes and writing. At thirteen, she was forced to attend a specialist school for delinquents, and became estranged from her family. She describes her teenage years as an overwhelming feeling of being lost and hopeless; she recalls with horror the indelible memory of seeing some of her closest friends placed into psychiatric care. After leaving school, Cardena found work in administration, then at a trust company where she excelled, studying law at night school. At twenty-three, she felt burnt out and miserable, and resigned from her job in order to follow her dream of becoming a writer. She has battled with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder for many years and has a keen insight into the subject, and the experiences of those receiving treatment, which inspires much of her writing. Her first novel, Karmicalement Votre, was published in French by Les Editions du Net in 2013.