Dina was born on the island of Santo Antão, Cape Verde, in 1941. She has worked as a teacher, a social assistant and a journalist, in Portugal, Angola and Cape Verde. Her latest publication, the short story collection “Filhos de Deus” (God's Children), came out in 2018. She is a founding member of the Cape Verdean Writers Association. In 1998, Dina was the first woman in Cape Verde to publish a novel. She is also the first to have a novel translated into English: “The Madwoman of Serrano” was published in September 2019 – just in time for the festival.