Adriana Lisboa was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1970. She has published, among other books, the novels Symphony in White (winner of the José Saramago Award), Crow Blue (chosen a book of the year by The Independent) and Hut of Fallen Persimmons (winner of a Japan Foundation Fellowship). She has also published poetry collections, short stories, and books for children. Her poems and stories have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, Asymptote, Granta, and Revista Casa de las Américas, among others. Her books have been published in more than twenty countries.

Adriana has a MA in Brazilian Literature and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Rio de Janeiro State University. She was a visiting scholar at The International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) in Kyoto, and at the University of New Mexico, as well as writer in residence at the University of California Berkeley. She has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, at the Spanish and Portuguese Department. 

​She has lived in France, New Zealand and the United States – where she currently resides, in Austin, Texas.