She was born in Tshofa, Kabinda District in the Belgian Congo.
[1] Albert S. Gérard calls her "the first poet of real significance" among a group of African writers who emerged in the late 1960s; she was also the first female writer in the Belgian Congo.
[1] Nzuji is married and is the mother of five children,[1] and many of her poems refer to her family.
[2] In 1964,[4] she founded the Pléiade du Congo, a literary group in Kinshasa,[2][5] and headed and helped found the International Centre for African Languages, Literatures and Traditions in favour of Development (CILTADE) at the Catholic University of Louvain.
[5] She has made important contributions in the study of Bantu linguistics and oral literature.