Ilya Kaminsky

was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977, and came to the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004) which won the Whiting Writer’s Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, and the Ruth Lilly Fellowship given annually by Poetry magazine. Dancing In Odessa was also named Best Poetry Book of the Year 2004 by ForeWord Magazine. In 2008, he was awarded Lannan Foundation’s Literary Fellowship. In 2009, poems from his new manuscript, Deaf Republic, were awarded Poetry magazine’s Levinson Prize. His anthology of 20th century poetry in translation, Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, was published by Harper Collins in March, 2010.