Couto was born in Salcette in South Goa on 22 August 1937 to António Caetano Francisco (Chico) de Figueiredo and Maria Quitéria Filomena Borges.

Both her paternal and maternal origins were from the Roman Catholic Brahmin community of the erstwhile Portuguese Goa and Damaon.

[1][2][3] She moved as a child to the neighbouring city of Dharwad, then in the Mysore state, and a centre of education and opportunity for Goans, with her parents and six siblings in an attempt to control her father's alcoholism.

[9] In this third book she described her father's battles with alcoholism, life in the changing times, and growing up in multicultural India.

[10] Couto also spoke about environmental issues and on various social justice causes pertaining to her home state of Goa.

[2] Couto was amongst writers who asked the Sahitya Akademi to condemn actions including the M. M. Kalburgi killing and other violence in the country in 2015.

She moved along with her husband spending time in different parts of India, as well as abroad, and later returned to shape the literature of the region in her later years.