Alina Dumitrescu was born in the former Socialist Republic of Romania, and emigrated to Montréal in 1988, shortly before the fall of the Ceausescu regime. Her schooling was not recognized in her adoptive country, and she undertook CEGEP and university studies in Québec. She began publishing poetry and short fiction in French in the 1990s. Le cimetière des abeilles was published by Triptyque in 2016, and was a finalist at the Festival du premier roman de Chambéry and won the Blue Metropolis/Conseil des arts de Montréal Diversity Prize.