 Her mother, a teacher, was obliged to live in a neighbouring village, and Collobert thus grew up at her grandparents' house, where her mother and her aunt would return whenever they could.Both entered into the French Resistance.In 1961, having abandoned her university studies, Collobert worked at the Galerie Hautefeuille in Paris, where she wrote "Totem" and many other texts that would three years later be part of her book "Meurtre" ("Murder").