Ilma Rakusa

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

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. 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.

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.

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. 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. Rakusa also works as a journalist (Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Die Zeit). Rakusa's novel Mehr Meer (2009) has been translated into many languages and received the Swiss Book Prize in 2009.

Rakusa has been a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung since 1996 and the jury of the Zuger Übersetzer-Stipendium. In 2010/2011, she was a fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study.

Today, Ilma Rakusa lives as a freelance writer in Zürich.

Awards and honors

 * 1987: Hieronymusring of the Verband deutschsprachiger Übersetzer
 * 1991: Petrarca translation award
 * 1995: Swiss Writer-in-residence Max Kade Institute at the University of Southern California
 * 1998: Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding (Commendation Award)
 * 1998: Schillerpreis der Zürcher Kantonalbank
 * 2003: Pro Cultura Hungarica
 * 2003: Adelbert von Chamisso Prize
 * 2004: Johann-Jakob-Bodmer-Medaille der Stadt Zürich
 * 2005: Vilenica International Literary Prize
 * 2005 Chamisso-Poetikdozentur by the Mitteleuropazentrum of the Technical University of Dresden and the Sächsische Akademie der Künste
 * 2009: Swiss Book Prize for Mehr Meer. Erinnerungspassagen.
 * 2010/2011: Fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study
 * 2015: Manès-Sperber-Preis
 * 2017: Berliner Literaturpreis
 * 2019: Kleist Prize