Conceiçao Lima was born in 1961 in the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, where she resides today. She studied journalism in Portugal and attended graduate school in London, where she later worked as a producer at the BBC’s Portuguese Language Service.
She has published four books of poetry: O Útero da Casa (The Home’s Womb) in 2004, A Dolorosa Raiz do Micondó (The Painful Root of Micondó) in 2006, O País de Akendenguê (The Country of Akendenguê) in 2011, and Quando Florirem Salambás no Tecto do Pico (When the Velvet Tamarinds Flower Over Pico [de São Tomé]) in 2015. Her work in Shook’s translation has appeared in The Literary Review, Jai-Alai, and World Literature Today.