leonardcohenforum.com

Leonard Cohen aimed high: to be all Jewish heroes at once. Like Jacob, he struggled with angels. Like David, he sang psalms and seduced women. But he never ceased doing what he did best: going from city to city and reviving our hearts. Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall (September 2024) follows the singer’s cosmopolitan life in Montreal and New York as a young Jewish poet who longed to be a saint, all the way to the Greek islands as an existentialist, gravelly-voiced crooner who taught a thousand ways of dissolving into love.

After more than two decades of research and travels, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the poet and spent time with him 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.

Claire Pokorchak | Publicity Manager |
ECW PRESS

Join us for a virtual event with Christophe Lebold, to discuss his new book, Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall. This event will be moderated by Amy Weiss, Director, Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies, and Tina Panik, Avon Library.

About the book:

Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall follows the singer’s cosmopolitan life from Montreal and New York to the Greek island of Hydra and examines his perpetual dialogues with himself, God, and avalanches.

We see how six decades of radiant pessimism and a few thousand nights in hotel rooms transformed a young Jewish poet who longed to be a saint into an existentialist troubadour in love with women and a gravelly-voiced crooner who taught a thousand ways of dissolving into love.

After more than two decades of research and travels, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the poet and spent time with him 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.

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.

Please register; Zoom links will be sent out before the event.

Co-sponsored by the Avon Library and Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies.

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The book is available
at ECW Press in Canada, the US and Australia,
at ECW-LUath Press in the UK
at Boréal for a new french edition in Quebec
at Audible in audio-version.
So far, Italian, Danish and Polish translations are also planned

The book is both a full biography (with an added chapter on Leonard's last two years, and his last 3 albums) but also a detailed analysis of the complete works, and - as I like to say - a metaphysical investigation on the fall of man and the art of seeing angels.

It also has a completely new iconography, with pictures from his whole life (some of them unseen)

throughout the book and in a central color section.

The volume is also informed by years of travelling on Leonard's tracks and by the time I was lucky to spend with him in L.A., where I could consult his private archives and diaries.

Plus there's this great cover by the wonderful Dominique Issermann, that shows Leonard, passing through the world at 150 mph in his pursuit of angels, lights up his cigarette, our hearts and world.

I am also quite happy with how the book looks: we have worked hard on the design with ECW Press to make the book a great looking object (with great paper as well).