Ilya was born and raised in Sydney, Australia.
Over the past two decades he’s written fiction, worked as an investigative journalist and foreign correspondent, and consulted on development, immigration and security policy in the Horn of Africa.
He’s worked as a correspondent in Papua New Guinea, Germany, Belgium, the U.K., Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya and Canada.
He is currently the Financial Times correspondent in Canada.
His first work of fiction, Your Name Here, co-authored with Helen DeWitt, will be published under the Dalkey Archive by Deep Vellum on Oct. 28 2025.
Ilya is married to New York Times staff correspondent and Canada bureau chief Matina Stevis. They live in Toronto with their son, Nikolai, their daughter, Aliki, and two labradors, Rupert and Scoop.