Ukrainian poet, prose writer, children's author, culturologist, and filmscript writer Oles Ilchenko was born in Kyiv on October 4, 1957. He has lived in Kyiv for most of his life and traveled extensively to numerous other countries. He has spent the last several years living in Switzerland with his wife. He received degrees from the Drahomaniv Kyiv Pedagogical University and the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow. He is the author of twenty-two children's books, the novels City with Chimeras (2009) and My Beloved Kyara (2011) and a book of memoirs of the 1970s-1990s, Collectors of the Mists: Subjective Notes from a Life in Kyiv (2017). His seven books of poetry include: A Wintry Garden (1991), Constellation AS (1993), A Different Landscape (1997), Pages (2004), Cities and Islands (2004), Conversation before Silence (2005), and Certain Dreams, or A Kyiv which is Not (2007). He also writes film scripts and is the author of numerous articles on cultural issues. His favorite pastimes include traveling to different countries, swimming, and experimenting with the creation of various culinary dishes.
