Born as Belinda Ty in Malabon, Philippines in 1931, she spent the World War II years with her grandmother while her father worked in the Philippine National Railways, and her mother in the Bureau of Public Schools.

Her grandmother told her innumerable stories about the Filipino's struggle for independence, that later became the topics of her novels.

In 1956, she married Leonard Casper, a professor emeritus of Boston College who is also a critic of Philippine Literature.

[1] In 1992, Tides and Near Occasions of Love won the Philippine PEN short story prize; another at the UNESCO International Writers' Day, London; and the SEAWrite Award in Bangkok "Triptych for a Ruined Altar" was in the Roll of Honor of The Best American Short Stories, 1977.

[2] Her novel Awaiting Trespass which is about the politically sensitive theme of torture by the Marcos regime was published by Readers International of London.