IEva Firla was born in Czechoslovakia, which is no longer extant. With her husband Ros and two small children, they left the country in 1980 and settled in Canada, in Sudbury, quite closely resembling the city of Ostrava, where they lived before, with its mining industry, although with much less polution. She still lives in Sudbury with her husband Ros. She has been interested her whole life in the ancient Roman Empire, its civilization, art and stability.