Mahalta is the nickname that poet Màrius Torres (August 30th, 1910 – December 29, 1942) gave to his lover Mercè Figueres, whom he met in Puigdolena Hospital, which specialised in the treatment of tuberculosis, which would eventually kill the poet in 1942 (Mercè Figueres did survive, and died in 1976, two years after Lluís Llach first performed this song).

The many letters that they wrote to each other during the time they spend in the aforementioned hospital, were published in 2017. The lyrics to this song are taken from the homonym poem, which was first published in Mexico in 1947 in the book "Cançons a Mahalta", by exiled writer Joan Sales, who was a friend of both Torres and Figueres.