Born in Jette, a municipality of Brussels, the daughter of a singer and a musician, she spent an itinerant childhood living in the Dutch East Indies, Germany and the Netherlands.

During the Second World War, she gave a German deserter refuge and was consequentially imprisoned in Scheveningen, although released due to insufficient evidence.

She continued to write, producing Spelen met de dood (Playing with Death) in 1983, although by that time her output had reduced to very low levels.

[3] Her schooling was disrupted by a bout of malaria, but her father took advantage of this by ensuring she had music lessons on the piano as well as instruction from his singing teacher, Mrs. Ypes-Speet while they were in Berlin.

[4] Her talent at writing became evident early in her life and she had her first story published in the newspaper Het Volk at the age of ten.

[7] However, she demonstrated a preference to cabaret, for which her voice was more suited, and she made her debut in 1914 at Jean-Louis Pisuisse's De Kattebel, adopting the stage name Willy Corsari.

Returning to the Netherlands, she continued to pursue her singing career with increasing success, while at the same time also resuming her writing.

[13] As well as novels and children's stories, she wrote stage plays and radio drama as well as translating works from Danish, English, French and Norwegian.

While in prison, she sang to entertain her fellow inmates and, although she was released due to a lack of evidence, this was the last time she felt able to sing to others.

The same year saw the publication of Liedjes en herinneringen (Songs and Memories), which contained reminiscences of her time in cabaret.

She has been called the Dutch Agatha Christie, due to the popularity of her detective novels, and characters like Inspector Robert Lund.

She subsequently married Hendrik Willem Cornelis Douwens to retain custody of her son, but her new husband died in 1931, leaving her a widow.