born in Ukraine, but was raised and educated in the West. he has authored some three dozen books of poetry, fiction drama, essays, translations, as well as linguistic publications in Ukrainian and English. he is a co-founder of The New York Group, a group of avant garde Ukrainian diaspora authors, and one of the original members of Fiction Collective, a collaborative of American innovative writers. He is considered one of the most radical innovators in contemporary Ukrainian literature, who broke with the neoromantic traditions in Ukrainian poetry and introduced new topics and forms that changed the face of Ukrainian literature. his English language works he have been lauded for an innovative language use, genre development, and Surrealist elements, in particular reliance on dreams. Tarnawsky studied Electrical Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology (BSEE, 1956) and a linguistics at New York University (PhD, 1982). he has worked as computer scientist at IBM Corporation and as professor of Ukrainian literature and culture at Columbia University. In 2008 Yuriy Tarnawsky was awarded the Prince Yaroslav the Wise order of merit by Ukrainian government.