Lilian P. W. Feitosa finished her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2008. Her M.A. is also from UMass Amherst. She grew up in Brazil where she received her B.A. and teaching licensures in English and Portuguese from the Universidade de São Paulo before moving to the U.S. to study in 1996.

Her doctoral research surveyed all Brazilian writers translated into English, focusing on the women writers and, in particular, on Clarice Lispector, Carolina Maria de Jesus and Ana Maria Machado. Her research interests are wide ranging, from the study of gender in literary histories to Brazilian music and nation, from the representation of women and gender in picture books to children's literature in general.

She has published two articles about diasporic Afro-Brazilian children's books in the African children's literature journal Sankofa and she taught Portuguese and Brazilian culture at James Madison University from 2010-2012.