In self-exile in Canada after the collapse of Yugoslavia and his mother's death, the narrator of Bait is listening to a series of tapes he recorded of his mother years before. As her story is told, he reflects on her life and their relationship, attempting to come to terms with his Jewishness and his own new life in a foreign culture.

DAVID ALBAHARI was born in 1948 in the Serbian village of Pec. He is the founder and was for many years the editor-in-chief of Pismo, a magazine of world literature. He is also an accomplished translator of Anglo-American literature. His previous novels include, Words are Something Else (Northwestern University Press, 1996) and Tsing (Northwestern University Press, 1997).

PETER AGNONE studied Serbian at the University of Pittsburgh and has made numerous visits to the former Yugoslavia since 1991. A nuclear engineer by trade, he is an author as well as a translator of the works of Serbian political scientists.

"Bait is perhaps the most unified and most balanced book Albahari has written till now, a book that, for its consistency and the demands it places before itself, announces to use the coming of age of a truly rare authoristic concept." —Vreme Knjige

"The narrator tells his reader, again and again, that were he a writer . . . he could bring a better eye for metaphorical significance to the story. But Albahari's artful meditations on the meaning of otherness will convince many that he is indeed a writer." —Booklist