Mussa was born in Rio de Janeiro, in a family of Indigenous and Lebanese descent.

[1][2] He first studied mathematics, then graduated in Languages at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

[3] His writings fuse Western narrative tradition with mythological accounts from other cultures, such as Afro-Brazilian, pre-Islamic Arabian and indigenous Brazil.

His works have been published in 17 countries and 15 languages, such as Argentina, Cuba, Portugal, Italy, France, England, Romania, Turkey, Spain and Egypt, and were awarded prizes such as the Premio Casa de Las Americas, the Prêmio Machado de Assis and the Prêmio APCA.

[4] Together with historian Luiz Antonio Simas, he wrote Samba de enredo: história e arte, a study about the aesthetic evolution of samba-enredo.