Vera was born in Bulawayo, in what was then Southern Rhodesia, to her mother Ericah Gwetai. At the age of eight, she worked as a cotton-picker near Chegutu.She attended Mzilikazi High School and then taught English literature at Njube High School, both in Bulawayo. In 1987 she travelled to Canada and she married John Jose, a Canadian whom she'd met while he was teaching at Njube. At York University, Toronto she completed an undergraduate degree, a master's and a PhD, and taught literature.

In 1995, Vera returned to Zimbabwe and in 1997 became director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo, a gallery which showcases local talent ranging from that of professional artists to school children. In 2004 she went back to Canada, where she died on April 7, 2005 of AIDS-related meningitis.

Whilst at university, Vera submitted a story to a Toronto magazine: the publisher asked for more, so she sat down to write them. Her collection of short stories, Why Don't You Carve Other Animals was published in 1992. It was followed by five completed novels:

• Nehanda (1993), short-listed for Commonwealth Writers' Prize
• Without a Name (1994), awarded Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Africa and Zimbabwe Publishers' Literary Award
• Under the Tongue (1997)
• Butterfly Burning (2000), awarded German Literature Prize 2002, chosen as one of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century in 2002
• The Stone Virgins (2002), awarded Macmillan Writers' Prize for Africa

At the time of her death she was working on a new novel, Obedience. Her works have been published in Zimbabwe, Canada and several other countries, including translations into Spanish, Italian and Swedish.

Vera wrote obsessively, often for 10 hours a day, and described time when she was not writing as "a period of fasting." Her work was passionate and lyrical. She took on themes such as rape, incest and infanticide, and gender inequality in Zimbabwe before and after the country's war of independence with sensitivity and courage. She said, "I would love to be remembered as a writer who had no fear for words and who had an intense love for her nation." In 2004 she was awarded the Swedish PEN Tucholsky Prize "for a corpus of works dealing with taboo subjects".

Vera also edited several anthologies by Zimbabwean women writers.