Dea Loher studied German studies and philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, where she received her master’s degree in 1988. From 1990, she participated in the playwriting program headed by Heiner Müller and Yaak Karsunke at the HdK Berlin. Her first play Olgas Raum debuted in 1991 at the Ernst Deutsch Theater in Hamburg. Dea Loher currently lives and works in Berlin.

In 2009, Dea Loher was awarded the Literaturpreis der Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung Berlin and was appointed as Heiner Müller Visiting Professor by Christine Keitel-Kreid, then vice president of the Freien Universität Berlin, for German-language poetry at the Peter Szondi Institute of General and Comparative Literature. She has been a member of the Deutschen Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung since 2013.