Ernestam grew up in
Uppsala, Sweden. She is a journalist, having earned her journalism degree at the
University of Gothenburg. In addition, Ernestam studied English literature and mathematics at the
University of Uppsala. Ernestam also studied in the United States, where she took a Master of Arts in political science, focusing on international relations, at the
University of Kansas. She then moved to Germany, where she stayed for eleven years in
Frankfurt am Main, as a correspondent for the Swedish business weekly
Veckans affärer and Swedish medical weekly
Dagens medicin. In 2005, Maria Ernestam had her first novel published, "Caipirinha with Death" (Caipirinha med Döden). It tells a tale of Death knocking at the wrong door and meeting a woman who starts working for him. In Russia the book was compared to
Mikhail Bulgakov's "
The Master and Margarita". Since then Ernestam has written seven more novels and contributed to anthologies and short-story selections. Ernestam lives in Stockholm with her husband and two children. ==Authorship==