David Albahari (, ; born 15 March 1948)Biography
at

SANU Sanu may refer to: * Sanu, Iran, village in the Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran *Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), an academic institution in Serbia * Sudan African National Union, a political party in Sudan *South American native ungula ...

official website, retrieved 1-12-2014 is a

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...

n writer, residing in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, maki ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...

, Canada. Albahari writes mainly novels and short stories in the

Serbian language Serbian (, ) is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language mainly used by Serbs. It is the official and national language of Serbia, one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina and co-official in Montenegro and ...

. He is also an established translator from English into

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...

. He is a member of the

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Serbica, sr-Cyr, Српска академија наука и уметности, САНУ, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, SANU) is a national academy and the ...

and a

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade ( sr, / ) is a public university in Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-ba ...

graduate.

Biography

Born in

Peć Peja ( Indefinite Albanian form: ''Pejë'' ) or Peć ( sr-Cyrl, Пећ ) is the fourth largest city of Kosovo and seat of Peja Municipality and Peja District. It is situated in the region of Rugova on the eastern section of the Accursed Moun ...

, in the former Yugoslav region of

Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a international recognition of Kosovo, partiall ...

to a

Sephardic Jewish Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...

family, Albahari published the first collection of short stories ''Porodično vreme'' (''Family Time'') in 1973. He became better known to wider audience in 1982 with a volume ''Opis smrti'' (''Description of Death'') for which he got

Ivo Andrić Ivo Andrić ( sr-Cyrl, Иво Андрић, ; born Ivan Andrić; 9 October 1892 – 13 March 1975) was a Yugoslav novelist, poet and short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961. His writings dealt mainly with life in ...

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

in the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British Nor ...

, where he still lives. He continues to write and publish in the

. In the late 1980s, Albahari initiated the first formal petition to

legalize marijuana The legality of cannabis for medical and recreational use varies by country, in terms of its possession, distribution, and cultivation, and (in regards to medical) how it can be consumed and what medical conditions it can be used for. These ...

in Yugoslavia.

Awards

In 2012 he was awarded the Vilenica Prize. He also received the following awards: Ivo Andrić Award (1982), Stanislav Vinaver Award (1993),

NIN Prize The ''NIN'' Award ( sr, Ninova nagrada, italics=yes, Нинова награда), officially the Award for Best Novel of the Year, is a prestigious Serbian (and previously Yugoslavian) literary award established in 1954 by the ''NIN'' weekly an ...

(1996),

National Library of Serbia The National Library of Serbia ( sr, Народна библиотека Србије, Narodna biblioteka Srbije) is the national library of Serbia, located in the capital city of Belgrade. It is the biggest library, and oldest institution in Ser ...

Award for bestseller (1996), International Balkanika Award (1996), Bridge Berlin Award (1998), City of Belgrade Award (2005) and

Isidora Sekulić Award The Isidora Sekulić Award ( sr, Nagrada Isidora Sekulić, italics=yes, sr-cyr, Награда Исидора Секулић) is a Serbian, and former Yugoslav, literary prize established by the Belgrade municipality of Savski venac in 1967 and ...

(2014). On 29 July 2016, Albahari won the first award at the " Druga prikazna" ("Another Story") literary festival in

Skopje Skopje ( , , ; mk, Скопје ; sq, Shkup) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; r ...

, Macedonia.Давид Албахари - добитник на првата награда „Друга приказна“
/ref> Albahari has been contributing to ''

Geist ''Geist'' () is a German noun with a significant degree of importance in German philosophy. Its semantic field corresponds to English ghost, spirit, mind, intellect. Some English translators resort to using "spirit/mind" or "spirit (mind)" to ...

'' magazine.

Works

His books have been translated into several languages and eight of them are available in English: *''Words Are Something Else'' (1996) *''Tsing'' (1997) *''Bait'' (2001) *''Gotz and Meyer'' (2003, United Kingdom) (2005, United States) *''Snow Man'' (2005) *''Leeches'' (2011) *''Globetrotter'' (2014) *''Learning Cyrillic'' (2014) * Checkpoint (2018).

References

External links

Homepage in Serbian and English''Voices on Antisemitism'' Interview with David Albahari
from the

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust his ...

Biography at Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin

"Marijuana March in Belgrade"

David Albahari
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''.com
Biography at Zandonai Editore

{{DEFAULTSORT:Albahari, David 1948 births Living people Writers from Peja Serbian novelists Serbian translators English–Serbian translators Serbian Sephardi Jews University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology alumni Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Writers from Calgary Jewish writers Serbian male short story writers Serbian short story writers Canadian cannabis activists Male novelists International Writing Program alumni Serbian emigrants to Canada Peja Jewish Kosovan history