Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odesa, Ukraine in 1977, and arrived to the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government.
He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press) and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins), In the Hour of War: Poems from Ukraine (Arrowsmith), and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books).
His work was the finalist for The National Book Award and won The Los Angeles Times Book Award, The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The National Jewish Book Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, The Whiting Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, Lannan Fellowship, Academy of American Poets’ Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize, and was also shortlisted for National Book Critics Circle Award, Neustadt International Literature Prize, and T.S. Eliot Prize (UK).
Deaf Republic was The New York Times’ Notable Book, and was also named Best Book of the Year by dozens of other publications, including Washington Post, Times Literary Supplement, The Telegraph, Publishers Weekly, The Guardian, Irish Times, Vanity Fair, Lithub, Library Journal, and New Statesman.
He collaborates frequently with painters, sculptors, musicians, choreographers, and theater artists. Odesa, Kaminsky’s recent collaboration with the photographer Yelena Yamchuk, published by Gost Books, was listed by Time Magazine among The 20 Best Photo Books of 2022.
His poems have been translated into over twenty languages, and his books are published in many countries, including Turkey, Netherlands, Latvia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Mexico, Macedonia, Romania, Spain, Iceland, India, Slovenia, France (where Kaminsky received Prix Alain Bosquet given annually by Gallimard), Italy (where his work was honored by the Bonanni Prize in L’Aquila), Germany (where his poetry was listed by the SWR television channel as German literary critics’ top pick) and China (where he was awarded the Yinchuan International Poetry Prize). In 2019, Kaminsky was selected by BBC as “one of the 12 artists that changed the world.”
Ilya Kaminsky has worked as a law clerk for San Francisco Legal Aid and the National Immigration Law Center. More recently, he worked pro-bono as the Court Appointed Special Advocate for Orphaned Children in Southern California.
He currently teaches in Princeton and lives in New Jersey.