Voinovich was born to father of Serbian descent, journalist, and mother of Jewish descent, professor of mathematics. His ancestor, Ivo Vojnovi?, was a prominent writer from Dubrovnik.

Voinovich is famous for his satiric fiction but also wrote some poetry. While working for Moscow radio in the early 1960s, he produced the lyrics for the cosmonauts' anthem, Fourteen Minutes Till the Start ("14 ????? ?? ??????"). Between 1951 and 1955, Voinovich also served in the Soviet Army during peace time.

At the outset of the Brezhnev stagnation period, Voinovich's writings stopped being published in the USSR, but became very popular samizdat and in the West. For his writing and participation in the human rights movement, Voinovich was excluded from the Soviet Writers' Union in 1974, his telephone line was cut off in 1976 and he and his family were forced to emigrate in 1980. He settled in Munich, West Germany and worked for Radio Liberty.

Voinovich helped publish Vasily Grossman's famous novel Life and Fate by smuggling photo films secretly taken by Andrei Sakharov.

Mikhail Gorbachev restored his Soviet citizenship in 1990 and since then the writer spends most of his time in the new Russia. Widowed in 2004 and married for the 3rd time, he now lives in Moscow. Voinovich has a son by his first wife and a daughter, Olga, by his second wife, the recently deceased, Irina. Voinovich has won many international awards and honor titles, such as State Prize of the Russian Federation (2000), Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer's Civic Courage (2002), and more. Since 1995 he has ventured into graphic arts and sells his paintings in Russian galleries and on the Web.

1st and 2nd parts of his magnum opus The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin ("????? ? ??????????? ??????????? ??????? ????? ???????") are set in the Red Army during World War II, satirically exposing the daily absurdities of the totalitarian regime. "Chonkin" is now a widely known figure in Russian popular culture and the book was also made into a film by the famous Czech director Ji?í Menzel. Chonkin is often referred to as "the Russian ?vejk". 3rd part of the novel was published in 2007. Not as well known so far as the 1st and the 2nd parts, it portrays the post-War life of the characters until recent time, including Chonkin's involuntary emigration to USA. Much attention has also been paid to the figures of Lavrentiy Beria and Joseph Stalin; the latter is mockingly presented as a son of Nikolai Przhevalsky and a Przewalski's horse. According to the author, the writing of the whole novel thus took almost 50 years.

In 1986 he wrote a dystopia novel Moscow 2042. In this novel, Voinovich predicted that Russia would be ruled by the "Communist Party of State Security" which combines the KGB, Russian Orthodox Church and the Communist party. This party is led by a KGB general Bukashev (name literally refers to "the bug") who met main character of the novel in Germany. An extreme Slavophile Sim Karnavalov (apparently inspired by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) eventually overthrows the Party and enters Moscow on a white horse.

His other novels have also won acclaim: The Ivankiad, his novel about a writer trying to get an apartment in the bureaucratic clog of the Soviet system. The Fur Hat, is, in many ways, a satire alluding to Gogol's Overcoat. His Monumental Propaganda is a stinging critique of post-Communist Russia, a story that shows the author's opinion that Russians haven't changed much since the days of Joseph Stalin.