Leonard Cohen has aimed high: to be all Jewish heroes at once. Like Jacob, he struggled with angels. Like David, he sang psalms and seduced women. Like Abraham, he moved from place to place and remained a stranger everywhere. But he never ceased doing what he did best: stepping into avalanches and reviving our hearts. From Montreal and New York to the Greek island of Hydra, Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall follows the singer’s cosmopolitan life and examines his perpetual dialogues with God, with himself, and with hotel rooms.

After more than two decades of research, Christophe Lebold, who spent time with the poet in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen’s life and art. Gracefully blending biography and essay, he interrogates the mission Cohen set out for himself: to show us that darkness is just the flip side of light.

Available from ECW Press

Christophe Lebold is associate professor at the University of Strasbourg (France), where he teaches literature, performance studies, and rock culture. A fan and friend of Leonard Cohen, he has traveled extensively in the poet’s tracks. Also a theater actor and student of Zen, he likes poets, cats, and — in a good mood — all sentient beings.

 

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.