Learn About Matt Cohen on good-read.club

Matt Cohen

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Born: December 29 1942

Died: 0101 12 19991999

Matt Cohen studied political economy at the University of Toronto, and taught political philosophy and religion at McMaster University in the late 1960s before publishing his first novel, Korsoniloff, in 1969.

His greatest popular success as a writer was his final novel, Elizabeth and After, which won the 1999 Governor General's Award for English-language Fiction only a few weeks before his death. He had been nominated twice previously, but had not won, in 1979 for The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone and in 1997 for Last Seen.

A founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada, he served on the executive board for many years and as president in 1986. During his presidency the Writer's Union was finally able to persuade the government of Canada to form a commission and establish a Public Lending Right program. He also served on the Toronto Arts Council as chair of the Literary Division and was able to obtain increased funding for writers. In recognition of this work he was awarded a Toronto Arts Award and the Harbourfront Prize.

Cohen died after a battle with lung cancer. A Canadian literary award, the Matt Cohen Prize - In Celebration of a Writing Life, is presented in Cohen's memory by the Writer's Trust of Canada.

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. The Fishing Summer was also nominated for a Governor General's Award for children's literature in 1997, making Cohen one of the few writers ever to be nominated for Governor General's Awards in two different categories in the same year.

A film adaptation of his 1990 novel Emotional Arithmetic has been produced by Triptych films starring Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer, Gabriel Byrne and Susan Sarandon. It was the closing Gala at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007.

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Matt Cohen

Matt Cohen

Books from Matt Cohen

Elizabeth and After

The Heart Is an Involuntary Muscle

The Spanish Doctor

Blockchain: Complete Guide To Understanding The Blockchain Technology Revolution And The Future Of Money

Typing

Freud: The Paris Notebooks

Aquarius 13/14: Special Canadian Issue

Emotional Arithmetic

The Portable Door

Intimate Stranger: New Stories from Quebec (Penguin Short Fiction)

Lives of the Mind Slaves

G.E.E.K.

Pasta for Wimps

K9 Duke the Comfort Dog

Το Βιβλιοπωλείο των κρυφών Μηνυμάτων

The Networked Wilderness: Communicating in Early New England

Colonial Mediascapes: Sensory Worlds of the Early Americas

Colonial Mediascapes: Sensory Worlds of the Early Americas

Asmara to Zanzibar: A photo tour and travel log of East Africa

Bookclub in a Box Discusses the Novel Elizabeth and After