In 1987, he was awarded the Andrić Prize for his short story collection Princ Vatre,[1] and in 2015 he won the NIN Award for best Serbian novel of the year 2014 for his novel Kuća sećanja i zaborava ("The House of Remembering and Forgetting").

Members of his family were some of the victims of the 1941 Kragujevac massacre committed by occupation forces during the World War II in Yugoslavia.

[4] He was a long-time editor of the drama program of the Radio Television of Belgrade.

[5] In 1989, he was one of the founders of the "Independent Writers" society in Sarajevo, in then-SFR Yugoslavia.

[6] In 1992, David was fired from the Radio Television of Belgrade for organizing an independent trade union.