Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw Angels Fall

Monk and seducer, joker and melancholic, troubadour and celebrity. Throughout his life, Leonard Cohen unfolded his trajectory as a lover of paradox, without ceasing to do what he did best: traveling from city to city to revive our hearts. Between Montreal, New York, and the Greek island of Hydra, Leonard Cohen, the man who saw angels fall, traces this cosmopolitan existence led as a perpetual dialogue with God, with himself, and with avalanches.

It shows how six decades of luminous pessimism and thousands of nights spent in hotels transformed a small Montreal Jewish poet who dreamed of becoming a saint into a libertine mystic and a crooner who mastered dark humor like no other.

After more than twenty years of research and travel, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the artist and spent time with him in Los Angeles, has written a passionate and fascinating book enriched with abundant iconography. Halfway between a life story and an analysis of a work, this landmark biography embraces the mission Cohen set for himself: to show us that darkness is only the flip side of light.

Publisher: Boréal Editions