Due to her father's frequent transfers in assignment, she lived in various places and studied in the public schools of Pangasinan, Tarlac, Laguna, Nueva Ecija and Rizal.

[2] In 1957, she edited an anthology for the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, with English and Tagalog prize-winning short stories from 1951 to 1952.

In 1970, alongside writing the biography of Imelda Marcos, Polotan-Tuvera collected forty-two of her hard-hitting essays during her years as a staff writer of the Philippines Free Press and published them under the title Author's Circle.

The city of Manila conferred on Polotan-Tuvera its Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, in recognition of her contributions to its intellectual and cultural life.

[3] The Malacañan Palace through Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda issued a statement: "The Aquino administration is united in grief with a country that mourns their passing.

"[8] Rina Jimenez-David of the Philippine Daily Inquirer described her short stories and novels as "unsentimental and clear-eyed depictions of heartbreak and disillusion.

"[9] In the eulogy for Polotan-Tuvera, fellow Palanca-winning writer and friend Rony Diaz said, "The number of books that she has written doesn’t really matter because all of them contain stories and essays of compelling beauty and profound wisdom.