Eva Ras

Biography

Ras was born on January 1, 1941 in Subotica, where she lived and went to school until she was eighteen, when she started to study acting and dramaturgy in Belgrade where she now lives. She performed in theatres throughout the former Yugoslavia and Serbia, on television in series written by Sinisa Pavic and Dragoslav Lazic, and in films directed by Dusan Makavejev, Aleksandar Petrovic, Zivko Nikolic, Emir Kusturica, and Ferenc Kardos among others.

She has published collections of poems: In the Good Old Days, When Mummy Buys Me Some Money and Bed of Silver, with which she took part in the Struga Poetry Evenings in 2004; a collection of short stories: From the top of the Moon’s mountain I looked down on my round grave, the novels: Don’t crow after me on the stairs that I’m the most beautiful of all, The Grey Woman, ...Cock on the Block..., House for Sale and With Eve to Paradise, which is about how no nation should be reproached because of bad rulers who are always prepared to sacrifice their people, and which appeared in Narodna knjiga bookshops towards the end of December 2004 and was sold out in a matter of days.

Altogether Eva Ras has published 13 literary works, with “House on Sale”, “With Eve to Paradise”, “Silver Bed”, and “Born Dead” being best known. Her plot is characteristically on the verge of imagined and real.

She is the widow of Radomir Stevic Ras, painter as well as founder and owner of a private theatre during the period of communist dictatorship when it was considered heresy; their daughter was Kruna Ras, a Serbian writer, whom Eva now survives, after her death in 1993 at the age of only 24.

Awards

She was hailed by the critics as actress of the year and in Hungary was awarded the Golden Butterfly on the occasion of the Celebration of 100 Years of Film, as well as the award for life’s work Aleksandar Lifka 2005. The Yugoslav National Film Theatre awarded her their Great Seal.

Eva Ras is the winner of Golden Ring 2007 for her creative opus, an award conferred by Feniks Publisher and Makedonija Prezent Foundation for Cultural and Scientific Affirmation. Eva Ras is an academic at Mediterranean Academy 'Brothers Miladinovci'

Ras has been awarded several important domestic literary awards: Woman’s Pen (for ...Cock on the Block..., 2001); The Kocic Book (for House for Sale, 2003), Ascendancy of year (for Bed of silver, 2006) as well as The International Man Booker Peoples' Prize in 2005 for her book Born Dead, in Timothy Byford’s translation.