After finishing primary school, Ilona Ferková had to start working due to her family’s poor economic situation. She mostly earned her living doing manual labour. In the 1990s, she worked as a coordinator at a Czech-Romani kindergarten in Rokycany, where she lives to this day.
Her first short stories began to appear in the early post-revolutionary period. She actively wrote for a number of Romani periodicals (Amaro lav / Our Word, Romano kurko / Romani Week, Kereka / Circle etc.). She made her debut with a book of short stories entitled Mosarďa peske dživipen anglo love / She Ruined Her Life for Money (1992), followed by a collection entitled Čorde čhave / Stolen Children (Společenství Romů na Moravě 1996), the novella “Kalo, či parno” / “Black or White” (2000) published in the Roma-studies journal Romano džaniben, and “Vakeriben pal e Anglija”/ “Stories from England” (2008). Ferková is also featured in the anthology of Romani prose Čalo voďi / The Nourished Soul (Muzeum romské kultury 2007). She draws inspiration for her works from the everyday life of the Roma in her immediate surroundings. In particular, she reflects on the consequences of the communist assimilation policy (taking children into care, coerced sterilization etc.). In 2018, she published a cycle of short stories entitled De mek jekh, Ľido! Kaštankuskre vakeribena andal e herňa (I’ll Have Another One, Lída! Kaštánek’s Stories from the Gambling Parlour, Kher 2018), then contributed the short story “Mulo, či na?” / “Dead or Alive?” to an anthology of ghost stories O mulo! (Look, A Ghost! Stories About the Ghosts of the Dead, Kher 2019) and the short story “Sar amen phirahas andre mozi” / “Going to the Movies” was released in an anthology of Romani prose entitled Všude samá krása (Nothing But Beauty Everywhere, Kher, 2021). Meanwhile, in 2020, several of her short stories (“Příběhy z Anglie” / “Stories from England” and selected stories from I’ll Have Another One, Lída) were published in the Icelandic anthology of Romani prose Sunnudagsmatur og fleiri sögur Rómafólks. In 2023, she published another separate, this time autobiographical novel for young people in Romani and Czech entitled AMEN (Kher, 2023). She occasionally writes for or acts in the theatre. Under the auspices of the Ara Art organization, her Stories from England was staged in 2022, with Ferková playing the lead. Her short story “Baletka” / “The Ballerina” was released in the anthology Fameľija nadevše (Family Above All Else, Slovo 21, Prague 2024), and her piece “Svázané nitky plodnosti” / “The Bound Threads of Fertility” was published a year later in the anthology Podphandle mašľičkenca (Tubes Tied with Ribbons, Slovo 21, Prague 2025). She is one of the most important representatives of the Romani literary tradition of the 1990s. In 1999, as chairwoman of the Rokycany Romani Women’s Association, she accepted an award from the Goodwill Foundation as part of the Olga Havel Prize.
Photo: Petr zewlakk Vrabec
