Writing Podcast Episode 729: Ilona Bannister discusses her darkly thrilling novel, ‘Five’

Ilona Bannister is a New Yorker but has lived in the UK with her British husband and two sons for fifteen years. She is a dual qualified US lawyer and UK solicitor and practiced immigration law in the UK before she started writing fiction. Ilona's parents and grandparents were Ukrainian immigrants to the US and their history and struggles had a great impact on her life, so she's always interested in stories about migration, otherness, and what it means to be on the outside of a place looking in. She has felt that a lot of times in her life and it's a human experience she likes to explore through writing. Her first book, When I Ran Away, was shortlisted for the First Novel Prize in 2021.