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. 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 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. In a stimulating book originally published in French, Lebold presents an in-depth discussion of Cohen's life and work. Fans old and new will love this refreshing take on the singer's engagement with the broken heart and the laws of gravity. 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. "I am deeply respectful of the mind that has produced this book." - Leonard Cohen, private email "An extraordinary piece of work, at every level … It's the biographical denouement that Leonard deserves… . Takes Cohenian biography to another level." - Michael Posner, author of Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: The Early Years "It's marvelous and highly recommended. Crammed with photos, footnotes, a blizzard of evidence, of fantastic research and opinion: this is ESSENTIAL." - Jim Devlin, author of Leonard Cohen: In His Own Words and In Every Style of Passion: The Works of Leonard Cohen "The best book about Leonard Cohen." - Jean-Luc Porquet, Le canard enchainé "Combining scholarly biography, luminous exegesis, and metaphysics of the broken heart, this is the Summa Cohenia we needed. With Gilles Tordjman's book, this is the best homage to the work of the Christ-loving Jewish poet." - Bernard Loupias, Le nouvel observateur Sales and Market Bullets - PRAISE FOR THE FRENCH EDITION: - "I am deeply respectful of the mind that has produced this book." - Leonard Cohen, private email - "The best book about Leonard Cohen." - Jean-Luc Porquet, Le canard enchainé - "It's marvelous and highly recommended. Crammed with photos, footnotes, a blizzard of evidence, of fantastic research and opinion: this is ESSENTIAL." - Jim Delvin, author of Leonard Cohen: In His Own Words and Leonard Cohen: In Every Style of Passion - THE RIGHT AUTHOR FOR THE TOPIC: After a PhD on Leonard Cohen's work, Christophe Lebold has followed Leonard Cohen's tracks around the world and was lucky to spend time with the poet in Los Angeles

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