Born in São Paulo. She studied Sports and Law and was an active lawyer in São Paulo’s civil service. The book Antes do Baile Verde won the Best Foreign Women Writers Grand Prix in Cannes (France) in 1969.

Her most famous novel is As Meninas (The Girl in the Photograph), which tells the story of three young women in the early 1970s, a hard time in the political history of Brazil due to the repression by the military dictatorship. In 2005 she won the Camões Prize, the greatest literary award in the Portuguese language.

She is one of Brazil's most important living writers, and one of the three female members of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. To date she represents a critical voice in the cultural life of Brazil, which can hardly be ignored.