Kohler was born on November 13, 1941, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Although she later immigrated to the United States, her childhood experiences in South Africa would influence much of her writing. In 1988, Kohler's short story "The Mountain" earned an O. Henry Award, and in 1989, Kohler published her first novel, The Perfect Place, about a wealthy woman who is forced to remember her traumatic South African past. Over the next five years, Kohler published two books, a collection of short stories entitled Miracles in America (1990) and The House on R. Street: A Novel (1994). Like much of her fiction, these books are dark stories that deal with physical and psychological abuse as well as sexual issues.

In 1999, Kohler published One Girl: A Novel in Stories, a book of interconnected short stories that fall into different stages of life. The book was awarded the 1998 Willa Cather Fiction Prize and featured the...