Demons of Leonard Cohen

Who speaks in Leonard Cohen’s oeuvre? By identifying the many guises in which Cohen presents himself to his audience, Francis Mus seeks to formulate an answer to this question. The countless roles assumed by Cohen’s persona are not some innocent games, but strategies in response to the sometimes conflicting demands of a ‘life in art’: they serve as masks that represent the performer’s face and state of mind in a heightened yet detached way. In and around the artistic work, they are embodied in different guises or ‘demons’: image (the poser), artistry (the writer and singer), alienation (the stranger and the confidant), religion (the worshipper, prophet, or priest), and power (the powerful or powerless). Ultimately, Cohen’s artistic practice can be read as an attempt at forging interpersonal contact. The wide international circulation of Cohen’s work has resulted in a partial severing with the context of its creation. Much of it has filtered through the public image forged by the artist and his critics in concerts, interviews and reflective texts. Consequently, this monograph is less a biography than a reception study, supplemented with extensive archival research, unpublished documents, and interviews with colleagues and privileged witnesses. This book sheds new light on the dynamic of a comprehensive oeuvre spanning a period of sixty years. Published in English.

“An imaginative reading uncovering the many masks of Leonard Cohen with special attention to the music and poetry of Canada’s most intriguing writer/poet/artist/singer. At last, a glimpse of the genuine Cohen.”

Francis Mus is a research fellow at theUniversity of Antwerp (Belgium). He wrote his doctoral thesis on theinternationalization of the Belgian avant-garde, and in 2015 published a Dutchmonograph on Leonard Cohen, which earned him the literary essay prize of East Flanders.He has lectured extensively on Cohen’s work, in cities such as Paris, Montréal,and Tel Aviv, and has published several academic articles, including a chapterin the award-winning collection Les révolutionsde Leonard Cohen (2016).