Irina Dunn was born in Shanghai to a Russian mother and a Chinese-Irish-Potuguese father. She came to Australia as a toddler growing up in Cammeray and Mosman, New South Wales (NSW).
Dunn has worked variously as a tutor in the English Department at Sydney University, as a journalist, book editor, film-maker, school and TAFE teacher, university lecturer, writer and translator. She represented NSW as an Independent Senator from 1988 to 1990 and was Executive Director of the NSW Writers' Centre from December 1992 to February 2008.
