She was the illegitimate daughter of a servant girl, Berthe Leduc, and André Debaralle, the son of a rich Protestant family in Valenciennes, who refused to legitimize her.

[1] In Valenciennes, Violette spent most of her childhood suffering from poor self-esteem, exacerbated by her mother's hostility and excessive protectiveness.

During her time at the Collège de Douai, she was introduced to what would become her first literary passions: the Russian classics, then Cocteau, Duhamel, Gide, Proust, and Rimbaud.

The same year, she failed her baccalaureate exam, and began working as a press cuttings clerk and secretary at Plon publishers, later becoming a writer of news pieces about their publications.

This love triangle is the basis of the plot of Ravages, wherein Violette is represented by the character Thérèse, Mercier by Marc, and Hertgès by Cécile.

[6] In 1938, she met Maurice Sachs (future author of Le Sabbat), and in 1942, he took Violette to Normandy, where she wrote the manuscript of L'Asphyxie.

She went on to write eight more books, including La Folie en tête (Mad in Pursuit), the second part of her literary autobiography.

It was written and directed by Martin Provost and shown in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.