Irena Eliášová was born in a Romani settlement in the village of Nová Dedina in southwestern Slovakia. When she was ten, her family moved to Chrastava near Liberec. She attended primary school both in Slovakia and the Czech Republic as her parents left for work in the Czech Republic in the spring and returned home to Slovakia in the autumn. As a result, Eliášová is comfortable expressing herself in Slovak as well as Czech and Romani. The young girl's dream of studying did not come true; instead, she had to help her parents make a living and worked as a labourer her entire life. She lived in Liberec, where she worked in a textile factory, for 30 years. She is now in early retirement and lives with her husband and son in Mimoň.
She has been writing since her youth, and several of her short stories and poems were released in the magazine Svět socialismu (World of Socialism) while she was still in Slovakia. In 1993, she founded a Romani children's song and dance ensemble in Liberec, where, among other things, her own skits were performed. In 2007, she was awarded a prize by the Writers' Association in a literary competition with the topic “Gypsies – Roma”, and an excerpt from her work-in-progress was included in the book of winning texts by both Romani and Non-Romani writers Devla, devla! / My God! (Dauphin 2008). In 2008, her book Naše osada / Our Settlement: Sad, Happy, and Mysterious Stories of the Roma, was published thanks to the support of Liberec Regional Scientific Library. One of her short stories was included in the 7th Kalmanach, an anthology regularly published by the Writers of Liberec. She regularly contributed to the Romani children's magazine Kereka, wrote commentaries for the Liberec daily, and collaborated with the Romano hangos newspaper. In 2013, Kher published her romantic novella Listopad/November in electronic form. At the instigation of Romani scholars, she wrote her first novel in Romani, Slunce zapadá už ráno / The Sun Sets Already in the Morning, which was published in the anthology of contemporary Romani women's prose of the same name (Knihovna Václava Havla 2014). She also contributed to Moji milí / My Dear Ones, e-anthology by Kher 2014), and in 2015, the Regional Scientific Library in Liberec published two of her fairy tales under the title Chci se vrátit do pohádky / I Want to Return into the Fairy Tale. In 2019, she published the historical novel E jag preačhiľa te labol / The Fire Stopped Blazing (Lampa, z. s.). Her short story “Samodruhá” / ”Expecting” was published in the anthology O mulo! Povídky o duchách zemřelých (Look, A Ghost! Stories About the Ghosts of the Dead, Kher, 2019) and her piece “Můj dědeček” / “My Grandfather” in the anthology Všude samá krása (Nothing But Beauty Everywhere, Kher, 2021). In 2022, again in collaboration with the Regional Scientific Library in Liberec, she published a collection of short stories and novellas entitled Rub a líc a jiné příběhy / Inside Out and Other Stories. She contributed her story “Manželka a matka” / “Wife and the Mother” to the anthology Podvázané mašličkami / Podphandle mašľičkenca (Tubes Tied with Ribbons, Slovo 21, 2025).
She has been a member of the Writers' Union since 2008. In December 2025, she received the Roma Spirit Award for her contribution to Romani culture.
Photo: Lukáš Houdek
