Ilma Rakusa

Last updated

Ilma Rakusa
2025-10-18 Buchmesse Ilma Rakusa (225).jpg
Ilma Rakusa in 2025
Born (1946-01-02) 2 January 1946 (age 79)
Rimavská Sobota, Slovakia
Occupation
  • Writer
  • translator
  • professor
NationalitySwiss
GenreProse, poetry
Years active1971–present
Notable worksMehr Meer (2009)
Notable awards
Website
www.ilmarakusa.info

Ilma Rakusa (born 2 January 1946) is a Swiss writer and translator. She translates French, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Hungarian into German.

Contents

Biography

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  [ de ]. [2] [3]

In 1977, Rakusa authored her first book, a collection of poems titled Wie Winter. She has since published numerous collections of poetry, 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  [ de ]. [5] 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. [6]

Awards and honors

Ilma Rakusa at the Erlanger Poetenfest 2009. P1030697 IlmaRakusa.JPG
Ilma Rakusa at the Erlanger Poetenfest 2009.

Bibliography

As editor

Translations into German

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Ilma Rakusa". www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de (in German). 18 October 2016. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
  2. 1 2 "Rakusa, Ilma: Archiv Ilma Rakusa". ead.nb.admin.ch. Retrieved 4 September 2024.
  3. ↑ "Ilma Rakusa" (PDF). www.ilmarakusa.info (in German).
  4. 1 2 Breidecker, Volker (30 December 2015). "Die Fahrende. Ilma Rakusa, die große Europäerin der Literatur, wird 70". Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). No. 300. p. 14.
  5. ↑ "Zuger Übersetzer-Stipendium / Zuger Übersetzer-Gespräche | Beitrag Detail". www.zugeruebersetzer.ch. Retrieved 4 September 2024.
  6. ↑ Schmitz, Michaela (9 June 2014). "Ode an die vierzehn Einsamkeiten". Deutschlandfunk (in German). Retrieved 4 September 2024.
  7. ↑ "Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding". City of Leipzig. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
  8. ↑ "Ilma Rakusa erhält Manès-Sperber-Preis". Der Standard (in Austrian German). 12 November 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  9. ↑ "Kleist-Preis für Schweizer Schriftstellerin Ilma Rakusa". Die Welt (in German). 9 May 2019. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  10. ↑ "Dan Diner und Ilma Rakusa erhalten Literaturpreise" (in German). WDR. 18 July 2025. Retrieved 19 July 2025.
  11. ↑ "Zuglärm und Orgelklang". Rheinischer Merkur (in German). No. 49. 3 December 2009. p. 2. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.