Ivan Smal-Stotsky was born in Radivonivka in the Poltava region of the Ukraine. He trained as a land surveyor and later became a book-keeper. His first novel The Peasant Girl was suppressed and he was arrested by the NKVD as an enemy of the state. After he arrived in Australia he published other prose works and prepared a collection of his poems for publication. By 1973 he had retired and was living in Townsville, Queensland. His individual poetry has appeared in the Australian Ukrainian periodicals Vilna Dumka and Novi Obryi and overseas in Vyzvolnyi Shliakh.