Ihor Pavlyuk's family on his father's side, also from Volyn, was repressed for participating in the national liberation struggle, sent to a special settlement at Kiselyovsk in 1947 and rehabilitated in 1991.

As a result he was sentenced to a period of hard labour in the Taiga (Zabaykal'skiy region) but continued to write as best he could, driven by a nostalgia for his Ukrainian homeland, until he was freed when the Soviet Union fell.

He has participated in various international literary festivals, including Estonia, Georgia, Russia, Belarus, Germany, Italy, the United States,[11] Poland, Turkey, Ireland, Pakistan,[12] England,[13] Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria.

Ihor Pavlyuk is presently a Leading Researcher at the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv,[14] Professor of Ukrainian media at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv,[15] a member of the editorial boards of literary, art and scientific magazines: "Золота пектораль",[16] "Дзвін",[17] "Українська літературна газета",[18] "Вісник Львівського університету".

His wife Lyudmyla Pavlyuk (Ukrainian: Павлюк Людмила Степанівна[42]) is Associate Professor at Department of Journalism of Lviv University.