Ilma Rakusa | |
---|---|
Born | Rimavská Sobota, Slovakia | 2 January 1946
Occupation |
|
Nationality | Swiss |
Genre | Prose, poetry |
Years active | 1971–present |
Notable works | Mehr Meer (2009) |
Notable awards |
|
Website | |
www |
Ilma Rakusa (born 2 January 1946) is a Swiss writer and translator. She translates French, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Hungarian into German.
Ilma Rakusa was born in 1946 in Rimavská Sobota, Slovakia to a Slovenian father and a Hungarian mother. She spent her early childhood in Budapest, Ljubljana and Trieste. In 1951, her family moved to Zürich, Switzerland.[1] Ilma Rakusa attended the Volksschule and the Gymnasium in Zürich. After the Matura, she studied Slavic and Romance Languages and Literature in Zürich, Paris and Leningrad between 1965 and 1971.[2]
In 1971, she was awarded a doctorate for her thesis titled Studien zum Motiv der Einsamkeit in der russischen Literatur, about themes of loneliness in Russian literature. From 1971 to 1977, she was a Wissenschaftlicher Assistent at the Slavic Seminar at the University of Zurich (UZH). From 1977 to 2006, she worked at UZH as a Lehrbeauftragter .[2][3]
In 1977, Rakusa authored her first book, a collection of poems titled Wie Winter. She has since published numerous collections of poems, collected short stories and essays. Rakusa works as a translator from French, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Hungarian into German.[1] She has translated works by authors including the French novelist Marguerite Duras, the Russian writer Aleksey Remizov, the Hungarian author Imre Kertész, the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva and the Serbo-Croatian Danilo Kiš.[4] Rakusa also works as a journalist (Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Die Zeit).[1] Rakusa's novel Mehr Meer (2009) has been translated into many languages and received the Swiss Book Prize in 2009.[4]
Rakusa has been a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung since 1996[1] and the jury of the Zuger Übersetzer-Stipendium .[2] In 2010/2011, she was a fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study.[1]
Today, Ilma Rakusa lives as a freelance writer in Zürich.[2]