Background
Matt Cohen was born on December 30, 1942, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He is the son of Morris Cohen and Beatrice Sohn. Matt grew up in Ottawa.
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Matt Cohen in 1967 received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Toronto in 1964 and 1965.
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
In 1967 Matt Cohen joined the faculty at McMaster University.
(Columbus and the Fat Lady' is Cohen's first collection of...)
Columbus and the Fat Lady' is Cohen's first collection of stories. In it, he extends his already considerable talents in unexplored directions. By turns funny, surreal, wistful, savagely satirical and brilliantly inventive, these stories intrigue and surprise the reader with their unexpected turns of phrase and event.
https://www.amazon.com/Columbus-fat-lady-other-stories/dp/0887844235/?tag=2022091-20
1972
(The Disinherited, first published in 1974, is one of Matt...)
The Disinherited, first published in 1974, is one of Matt Cohen's four novels that came to be known as the Salem quartet - stories set in the fictional town of Salem in eastern Ontario, somewhere north of Kingston in the rugged farmland and forest of the Canadian Shield.
https://www.amazon.com/Disinherited-Matt-Cohen/dp/0771092210/?tag=2022091-20
1974
(The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone, a story about th...)
The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone, a story about the pleasure of love that comes late in life, centres on the lives of two time-worn characters whose pursuit of happiness is strangely rewarded.
https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Second-Summer-Kitty-Malone/dp/0676973477
1979
(The story of Avram Halevi of Toledo, a late 14th-century ...)
The story of Avram Halevi of Toledo, a late 14th-century Jewish doctor forced to convert to Christianity at the age of ten. He becomes a physician and surgeon in Montpellier and returns to the poor Jewish sector of his native city to live a dangerous professional life, serving the Christian rich. His relationship with the beautiful, ambitious Gabriela founders as his people are scattered in yet another attack by misguided Christian zealots. His cousin, Antonio, is cruelly tortured and Halevi euthanizes him in prison. Escaping Toledo, he returns to Montpellier where he finds friends, a wife, a family, and eventually a professorship, but religious rivalry again intervenes through the brutality of a worldly cardinal. Try as he might to remain above the fray of religious and political struggles, Halevi is stripped of all he holds dear and dragged into controversy again because he senses what is morally right.
https://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Doctor-Matt-Cohen-1986-05-29/dp/B01K8ZA7W2/?tag=2022091-20
1984
(Spanning four decades from the 1940s to the present and s...)
Spanning four decades from the 1940s to the present and set against the backdrops of Paris, Jerusalem, Cambridge, and Toronto, this novel focuses on a sensuous female astronomer's attempt to free herself from the past.
https://www.amazon.com/Nadine-Matt-Cohen/dp/0517565609/?tag=2022091-20
1987
(It's a late night in the city. From his father's shoulder...)
It's a late night in the city. From his father's shoulder, a sleepless baby watches the snow drift down from the sky onto the busy street below. What are all those noises? What are all those lights? His tired but patient father explains everything, from the bustle of taxis swishing through the slush to the grinding and slamming of the early-morning garbage trucks. Teddy Jam's lyrical prose and Eric Beddows's detailed illustrations cast Night Cars in that magical light between sleep and waking. A warm and witty tale for a cold winter's night.
https://www.amazon.com/Night-Cars-Teddy-Jam/dp/0888997485
1987
(At the heart of Emotional Arithmetic is a memorable woman...)
At the heart of Emotional Arithmetic is a memorable woman: Melanie Winters, mother, and lover, middle-aged, eccentric, courageous, quirkily unpredictable - and deeply marked by her past. For behind Melanie's present life lies the terrible story of how, as a girl, she was interned at Drancy in Paris - the way-camp to Auschwitz, where she realized that her parents would never return. For two years, the friendship of an English boy, Christopher Lewis, and the protection of an older man, Jakob Bronski, helped her survive. Years later, Melanie is able to offer Bronski, now an elderly heroic Russian dissident and a veteran of a Soviet gulag, a home with her family. Christopher, meanwhile, has become a novelist, and he too reenters her life. As the two men converge, the past swiftly upsets Melanie's precarious mental balance. She must confront again the demons of her past, and the difficult balancing of guilt and love, good and evil, duty and desire.
https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Arithmetic-Matt-Cohen/dp/0312130643/?tag=2022091-20
1990
(Doctor Kiss is quite prepared to say yes when she finds a...)
Doctor Kiss is quite prepared to say yes when she finds a letter asking her to come to the aid of a young knight who has been injured in battle. She waits until after her usual goodnight kisses and hugs from her parents, and then she takes her medical bag and climbs through her bedroom window into a gilded, magical world from the age of chivalry.
https://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Kiss-Says-Yes-Teddy/dp/1554981948/?tag=2022091-20
1991
(Paul Stevens enters a world of anxious curiosity as he st...)
Paul Stevens enters a world of anxious curiosity as he struggles to know more about his new love, Judith, after discovering that his gambling brother, Henry, knows her through a mutual connection in her secret life.
https://www.amazon.com/Bookseller-Matt-Cohen/dp/0312142889/?tag=2022091-20
1993
(In this copiously illustrated, large-format chapter book,...)
In this copiously illustrated, large-format chapter book, a girl is on her annual visit to the country to help her grandfather make maple syrup. Gazing into the flames below the pan of boiling sap, the girl asks the kind man if he has ever seen a fire bigger than this, which inspires him to recount the vivid tale of a spectacular blaze that swept through the countryside in 1919, destroying an entire forest and a neighbor's house and fields.
https://www.amazon.com/Year-Fire-Teddy-Pictures-Wallace/dp/0888991541/?tag=2022091-20
1993
(Charlotte is not just any little girl. She has some defin...)
Charlotte is not just any little girl. She has some definite opinions about the important things in life. In this trio of engaging stories with real-life themes, author Teddy Jam, and artist Harvey Chan explore the fun - and the complexity - of being a little girl. Charlotte is not just any little girl. She has some definite opinions about the important things in life. In this trio of engaging stories with real-life themes, author Teddy Jam, and artist Harvey Chan explore the fun - and the complexity - of being a little girl.
https://www.amazon.com/Charlotte-Stories-Teddy-Jam/dp/0888993021/?tag=2022091-20
1994
(Lives of the Mind Slaves features 7 short stories - one o...)
Lives of the Mind Slaves features 7 short stories - one of which ("Trotsky's First Confessions") was written especially for this book - and a brilliant novella. It contains the best of Cohen's two previous short story collections, Café Le Dog and Living on Water.
https://www.amazon.com/Lives-Mind-Slaves-Matt-Cohen/dp/088984139X/?tag=2022091-20
1994
(Winning a toy log cabin in a cereal box contest, Jacob di...)
Winning a toy log cabin in a cereal box contest, Jacob discovers something strange about his new prize, when four tiny dolls in the cabin awaken, demand that Jacob play with them, and get into all kinds of mischief. Winning a toy log cabin in a cereal box contest, Jacob discovers something strange about his new prize, when four tiny dolls in the cabin awaken, demand that Jacob play with them, and get into all kinds of mischief.
https://www.amazon.com/Jacobs-Best-Sisters-Stella-Teddy/dp/0888992297/?tag=2022091-20
1996
(Last Seen is a darkly comic story of two brothers and a w...)
Last Seen is a darkly comic story of two brothers and a woman who brings them both back to life. Harold, the older brother, is handsome and charming but dying of cancer. Alex is bookish and a scholar in Europe. With Francine, a nurse they both once loved, Alec cares for Harold until he dies. One day, Alec goes into a bar full of Elvis impersonators and there meets Francine - and Harold. Why has Harold come back from the dead? In this fragmentary tale of obsessive grieving, Cohen mixes moments of wry humour with touching pathos. Last Seen demonstrates that it takes more than death to untie the knot between two brothers.
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Seen-Matt-Cohen/dp/0394281683/?tag=2022091-20
1997
(A mother caring for her baby through the night reflects o...)
A mother caring for her baby through the night reflects on the joys and mysteries of this new and precious life. With a simple poetic text and gorgeous Matisselike illustrations by renowned textile designer Virginia Johnson, This New Baby is a perfect evocation of parental love. Any person who has ever had a baby, anyone who would like to have a baby and anyone who has ever been a baby will be deeply touched by this beautiful book.
https://www.amazon.com/This-Teddy-Groundwood-Books-Board/dp/B00P4UBG7M/?tag=2022091-20
1998
(A touching and resonant story of a man who returns to the...)
A touching and resonant story of a man who returns to the small town of West Gull, Ontario, to mend his family's legacy of alcohol and violence, to reconnect with his young daughter, and to reconcile himself with the spirit of his beautiful mother, killed several years earlier in a tragic accident. Elizabeth and After masterfully wraps us up in the lives of Carl and his family, and the other 683 odd residents of this snowy Canadian hamlet.
https://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-After-Novel-Matt-Cohen-ebook/dp/B00WDX1A56/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(A young boy's father, like many of the local farmers, owe...)
A young boy's father, like many of the local farmers, owes money to the powerful Mr. Richard. Although Mr. Richard has been unfriendly, when the boy sees him clearing a field of stones, he decides to lend a hand. The boy's father joins in, and by dawn, the difficult job is completed and the debt has been forgiven. This historically accurate story of farm life in the '20s expands the author's series of stories about traditional rural life.
https://www.amazon.com/Stoneboat-Teddy-Jam/dp/0888993684/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(The heroine of The Charlotte Stories returns, easing her ...)
The heroine of The Charlotte Stories returns, easing her pain over the loss of her favorite teachers by finding a strange dog in a rainstorm that only responds to backwards commands.
https://www.amazon.com/Ttum-Teddy-Jam/dp/0888993730/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(Typing includes rare and wonderful portraits of George Gr...)
Typing includes rare and wonderful portraits of George Grant, Hugh Garner, Morley Callaghan and Margaret Laurence, writers who came ahead of him and who posed their own puzzles of recognition and success. Cohen's memoir is rich in recollection, from his early days at Rochdale writing hip, stream-of-consciousness novels to his move to a farm near Kingston, Ontario, where the southern Ontario landscape captured his imagination and inspired such novels as The Disinherited, The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone and, years later, Elizabeth and After. Through the ebbs and flows of literary fashion and worldly acclaim, Cohen stayed constant to the demands of fiction.
https://www.amazon.com/Typing-Life-Twenty-Six-Matt-Cohen/dp/0679310509/?tag=2022091-20
2000
(With a clear-eyed affection for the wandering souls who p...)
With a clear-eyed affection for the wandering souls who populate the ten stories in Getting Lucky - as they cling to talismans like a cowboy shirt, a chenille bedspread and a 1953 classic Ford - Matt Cohen causes us to look at them, and the worlds they inhabit, in unexpected ways. In his darkly comic, wholly original manner, he moves and surprises us, makes us laugh, and reveals the many sides of his extraordinary imagination.
https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Lucky-Matt-Cohen/dp/0676973639/?tag=2022091-20
2001
(A boy’s father is a ticket scalper for Maple Leaf Gardens...)
A boy’s father is a ticket scalper for Maple Leaf Gardens, a major sports stadium in Toronto. As a young boy, the father was schoolmates with the Conacher brothers, now famous hockey stars. His son knows their stories by heart. One night, Charlie Conacher appears and buys tickets to a game for himself and the father and son. A shared love of hockey and each other makes this a memorable tale.
https://www.amazon.com/Kid-Line-Teddy-Jam/dp/088899432X/?tag=2022091-20
2001
Matt Cohen was born on December 30, 1942, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He is the son of Morris Cohen and Beatrice Sohn. Matt grew up in Ottawa.
Matt Cohen received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Toronto in 1964 and 1965, respectively, joining the faculty at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1967.
Matt Cohen lectured at McMaster University in religion for a year before turning his sights to writing as a full-time job. Later in his career, he returned to education and served as visiting professor at several schools, including the University of Victoria and the University of Bologna. Cohen’s first book, Korsoniloff was published in 1969 and tells the story of a schizophrenic assistant professor of philosophy. Throughout his career, Cohen’s work garnered mixed reviews, but he received several awards for his writing.
He also published a number of children's books under the pseudonym Teddy Jam. Cohen's authorship of the Teddy Jam books was not revealed until after his death. His final book of short stories, Getting Lucky, and his final Teddy Jam title, The Kid's Line, were posthumously published in 2001.
(A touching and resonant story of a man who returns to the...)
1999(With a clear-eyed affection for the wandering souls who p...)
2001(The Disinherited, first published in 1974, is one of Matt...)
1974(Spanning four decades from the 1940s to the present and s...)
1987(Paul Stevens enters a world of anxious curiosity as he st...)
1993(Winning a toy log cabin in a cereal box contest, Jacob di...)
1996(Typing includes rare and wonderful portraits of George Gr...)
2000(The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone, a story about th...)
1979(At the heart of Emotional Arithmetic is a memorable woman...)
1990(The heroine of The Charlotte Stories returns, easing her ...)
1999(Lives of the Mind Slaves features 7 short stories - one o...)
1994(Doctor Kiss is quite prepared to say yes when she finds a...)
1991(In this copiously illustrated, large-format chapter book,...)
1993(When a boy stows away on the fishing boat belonging to hi...)
1997(The story of Avram Halevi of Toledo, a late 14th-century ...)
1984(A mother caring for her baby through the night reflects o...)
1998(Last Seen is a darkly comic story of two brothers and a w...)
1997(A boy’s father is a ticket scalper for Maple Leaf Gardens...)
2001(A young boy's father, like many of the local farmers, owe...)
1999(Columbus and the Fat Lady' is Cohen's first collection of...)
1972(Charlotte is not just any little girl. She has some defin...)
1994(This is a collection of short stories.)
1986(This is a collection of short stories.)
1985(This is a collection of poetry.)
1974(It's a late night in the city. From his father's shoulder...)
1987(This is a collection of poems.)
1985Matt Cohen fought hard for the Public Lending Right, which ensured that writers were paid each time their books were borrowed from a public library.
Matt Cohen was a founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada.
Matt Cohen was married three times: first to Arden Ford, next to Susan Bricker and then to Patsy Aldana, a publisher. He had two children by his third wife: Daniel and Mandeleine. Matt also had two stepchildren: Seth and Carlotta.