Barbara Yelin was born in 1977 in Munich and studied illustration at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. She first came to prominence as a graphic artist in France, before gaining recognition in Germany for her book Gift (with a script by Peer Meter), published in 2010. Yelin has worked as a comics artist for newspapers and international anthologies, but her work largely focuses on research-based, historical, and biographical graphic novels, mainly about women. Supported by GoetheInstitute Israel, Yelin commemorated the life of the Israeli actress Channa Maron, published in 2016 under the title Vor allem eins: Dir selbst sei treu (This Above All: To Thine Own Self Be True). In 2017, in collaboration with author Thomas von Steinaecker, she drew The Summer of Her Life, a poetic graphic novel about Gerda, the resident of a retirement home. Her most recent work is a graphic narrative created in dialogue with Holocaust survivor Emmie Arbel. It was published in 2022 in the acclaimed anthology But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust. In 2016, Yelin was declared 'Best German-language Comics Artist' at the International Comic-Salon, Erlangen, and was nominated for an Eisner Award for Irmina in the following year. She lives and works in Munich.