Maas was born in
Georgetown, Guyana. She came from a prominently political family of Dutch, Amerindian and
Afro-Caribbean descent. In 1973 she travelled overland to India via England, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After two years in India she moved to Germany, where she married a German. As of 2016, she was working as a social worker in a German hospital. in 2018, after living in Germany for over 40 years, she moved to Ireland. Her first three novels, published by HarperCollins, focus substantially on their respective protagonists' coming-of-age experience and struggle to find their own, unique identity and place in life ("Bildungsroman"), and are chiefly set against Indian and Guyanese backgrounds. Her fourth book,
Sons of Gods is a retelling of the Mahabharata. In 2014 she signed with the UK digital publisher Bookouture, which re-published
Of Marriageable Age in May 2014 and several new works.
Peacocks Dancing was republished as
The Lost Daughter of India and
The Speech of Angels was republished as
The Orphan of India. Her work has been translated into German, Spanish, French, Danish, Hungarian and Polish. ==Publications==