Born in Peć, in the former Yugoslav region of Kosovo to a Sephardic Jewish 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 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.