Leonard Cohen's Biography
Leonard Cohen's Biography
Biographical Details:
Leonard Cohen was born on September 21st, 1934 in Westmount. He died on November 7th, 2016 in Los Angeles. Leonard Norman Cohen did plenty of things while he was still alive in connection with his main career, which was being an author. He sang, wrote songs, played many instruments, wrote poems and lastly, painted a lot. The main subjects of his novels and poems were death, losses in his life, love, and the passion he had for his career. In short, he was very well-known in the art and music industry.
Family History, Childhood, and Education:
His family was Jewish. Leonard was the second born of the Cohen family. His parents were Masha Klinitsky-Klein and Nathan Bernard Cohen. During his youth, he went to two Jewish schools named Roslyn Elementary School and Herzliah High School. Then, he changed schools during the year 1948 to go to Westmount High School where he was president of the school and spent a lot of his free time working on his school’s theatrical and art projects. Cohen’s interest in the art and music industry came really early in his lifetime. He started playing around with his guitar at the age of 15 because of country and western music. Later in his career, Leonard changed to a classical guitar instead of a steel string guitar. Cohen then studied at McGill University in English Literature and got his diploma in 1955.
Reasons for Becoming an Author
Ever since Leonard Cohen was young, he showed
interest in poetry. The author loved reading poems in his free time. Later in
his life, he went to McGill University to study English Literature. Leonard
Cohen also went to Columbia University for a while. During that time, he still
wrote poetry. A while later, he signed a deal with publishers and the Canada Council for the Arts gifted $2,000 to
Cohen so that he could write a new book. That money (and inheritance from his
grandmother and father) enabled him to start his author career. In summary,
Leonard Cohen became an author because he always had an interest in poetry and
writing, and he had the resources to do so.
Pathway Taken to Become an Author
Leonard loved poetry as early as when he was at Herzliah High School. Then, when he transferred to Westmount High School, he already knew that he wanted to study poetry and music. At that time, his favorite writer was a Spanish poet, Federico García Lorca. He also enjoyed reading Jack Kerouac’s work. Then, when he attended McGill University, he won the Chester MacNaghten Literary Competition for his poems named Sparrows and Thoughts of a Landsman. When he was at McGill University, Cohen already had a mentor. The man in question was a poet named Irving Layton. Cohen's first poems were published in March 1954 in the CIV/n magazine. The year after his graduation, his first book of poetry was published and loved by the well-known literary critic Northrop Frye. It is after this period of his life that he decided to also write in the fiction category. His novel Beautiful Losers had some controversial reviews, mainly because of several sexually graphic passages. In 2011, a couple of years before his death, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for literature. In his author life, he has not encountered a lot of tough times, except for when he tried to publish his first book, The Favourite Game, he got rejected by his publisher so the book ended up being published for the first time by Secker and Warburg, from the United Kingdom.
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| Irving Layton (Cohen's mentor) |
Description of the Significant Moments in His Life
In 1954, Cohen's poetry is published for the first time. In 1955, he graduated from McGill University and then published his first poetry book Let Us Compare Mythologies in 1956. Later, he published his first novel The Favourite Game in 1963. Leonard had a son in 1972 (Adam Cohen) and a daughter in 1974 (Lorca Cohen). In 1984. He then released Various Positions, his first album. It contains arguably his most iconic song, Hallelujah. He was inducted into Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1991. Finally, in 1993, he won his first of five Juno awards and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for lifetime achievement.
His Most Important Work
His most important work is a song called
“Hallelujah”. He wrote the song, then published it in 1984 and it is one of the
staples of the music from that era. It gained popularity after a cover was
featured in the movie Shrek that was published in 2001. The song
has been used in films, television soundtracks and televised talent contests.
There are now over 300 covers of this song that are known. The song appeared on
many singles charts after Cohen’s death in November 2016. It is a song that
everyone knows and that is why it is his most important work.
Interesting Facts
- Besides being an author and a signer, he invented a cocktail called Red Needle.
- After his years of college, he was considering becoming a lawyer, he even went to McGill University to study law during one term.
- He was president of the debate team at McGill University where he argued about some of Canada’s most controversial topics.
- At some point in his life, he was so depressed that he had to retreat from his public life, and he joined a Buddhist monastery, where he became a monk (a man who devotes his life to religion).
Other Information
- In 1964, Cohen won the Quebec Literary Competition Prize because of his book The Favourite Game.
- In 2006, Book of Longing, a collection 167 new poems that he had never published accompanied by 40 drawings was published and it figured as a No. 1 best-seller in Canada.
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