Born in Italy, she lived in Venezuela for more than forty years and was a Full Professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. A specialist in 20th century Latin American Literature (including Brazil, Spanish America and Caribbean), her research and teaching interests also include Poetry and Women Writers, at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She has published eight books of literary criticism, eight books of poetry, more than fifty articles, and various translations of Brazilian and Italian authors (Oswald de Andrade, Cabral de Melo Neto, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Claudio Magris, Alfonso Gatto, among others). She has also been on the jury in prestigious literary competitions, such as the Premio Casa de las Américas (Cuba). Some of her poetry has been translated into Italian and English and has appeared in a number of anthologies of Latin American poetry. Several critical works about her poetry have been published in recent years. Since 2001, she lives in Amherst (MA).