Biography of David Albahari (1948–2023)

David Albahari was a writer, translator, and academic. Throughout his career, he wrote primarily novels and short stories, often infused with autobiographical elements. He was also an accomplished translator from English and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Born into a Jewish-Serbian family, Albahari became president of the Association of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia in 1991 and helped organize the evacuation of Jewish residents from Sarajevo during the war. In 1994, he moved with his family to Canada, where he lived until 2013, before returning to Serbia.

Albahari’s prose is known for its introspection and complexity—sometimes described as hermetic—but his readership steadily grew, and his works came to be seen as essential links between Serbian literature and the broader currents of world fiction. His debut short story collection, Porodično vreme (Family Time, 1973), earned him early recognition as a major voice in Serbian literature.

“Why should the writer be seen as someone who understands things better than any other person?” — from an interview

Some of David Albahari’s most notable works include Mamac (Bait, 1996), Pijavice (Leeches, 2006), Kontrolni punkt (Checkpoint, 2011), Words Are Something Else (short stories, 1973–1993), Learning Cyrillic (short stories, 1997–2009).

Each new publication by Albahari was regarded as a literary event. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. He also translated numerous English-language authors, including Vladimir Nabokov, Margaret Atwood, Sam Shepard, and Sarah Kane.