Nunez began writing as early as nine years of age and won the first-place prize for the "Tiny Tots" writing contest in the Trinidad Guardian.[6] She emigrated from Trinidad to the United States after completing high school at the age of 19 in 1963.[1]
Having arrived in the United States aged 19, Nunez earned a BA in English from Marian College in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and an MA and PhD in Literature from New York University.[6] She began teaching at Medgar Evers College in 1972, a year after the college was established, and was instrumental in developing its writing curriculum.[6] She is a Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, where she teaches courses on Caribbean Women Writers and Creative Writing.[7]
The author of eight novels, she is also co-editor with Jennifer Sparrow of Stories from Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad, co-editor with Brenda M. Greene of the collection of essays Defining Ourselves: Black Writers in the 90s,[8] and author of several monographs of literary criticism.[1] Her memoir "Discovering my Mother" was published in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa edited by Margaret Busby.[5]
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