David Albahari

Who is David Albahari?

David Albahari is a Serbian writer of Jewish origin, residing in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Albahari writes mainly novels and short stories. He is also an established translator from English into Serbian. He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He graduated from the University of Belgrade.

Albahari published the first collection of short stories "Porodično vreme" in 1973. He became better known to wider audience in 1982 with a volume "Opis smrti" for which he got Ivo Andrić award. In 1991 he became the chair of the Federation of Jewish Communes of Yugoslavia, and worked on evacuation of the Jewish population from besieged Sarajevo. In 1994, he moved with his family to Calgary in the Canadian province of Alberta, where he still lives. He continues to write and publish in the Serbian language.

In the late 1980s, Albahari initiated the first formal petition to legalize marijuana in Yugoslavia.

His books were translated into several languages and six of them are available in English: Words Are Something Else, Tsing, Bait, Gotz and Meyer, Snow Man, and Leeches.