She was born in the village of Janicat in the Ottoman Empire, today part of the Finiq municipality in southern Albania.
Her first book Stin sikaminia apo kato (Under the Mulberry Tree) received the Academy of Athens award.
Papa's main characters are mainly girls, such as Tasoula (in a novel with the same title), a servant girl from Corfu, where she dreams to live with her godfather in Athens.
[2] The distinguished author Nikos Kazantzakis said to her once, "I really admire your writing style... the sensitivity, the liveliness".
After her death her sister, the painter Aglaia Papa, arranged for publication of Katina's novel S'ena gymnasio thyleon ("In a girls' high school") and a collection of Katina's poems: Poiimata (Poems).