Yana Vagner was born in Moscow in 1973 into a bilingual family. Her Czech mother came to Moscow in the 60s to study Russian language and literature.

Yana graduated from Moscow State University with a major in management and has worked as an interpreter, an anchorperson on radio, and a logistics manager, which allowed her to travel extensively throughout Africa, Europe and Latin America.

She started writing Vongozero aka To the Lake as a weekly blog while a flu epidemic swept through Moscow. It has since become a bestselling novel, translated into multiple languages and adapted into a Netflix series.

Yana Vagner lives with her husband, son, and two dogs in their country house on the outskirts of Moscow.