הפוך קטן ודי חוקרת וכותבת אקטיוויסטית
Cohen came rather late to his career as a folk singer by way of his poetry and novel writing (he has published nine books, some in multiple printings). The son of Russian Jews, he was born in Montreal. His father had been a dashing officer in the Royal Montreal Regiment in the First World War, and Leonard remembers him as “a very patriotic man.” He was a snappy dresser who wore a monocle and spats and ran a dredging company that dug provincial canals. Although he died when Leonard was only 9, he left a vivid impression on his son. After the funeral the boy wrote a note about him and buried it in the garden along with one of his father’s bow ties. “It was the first thing I wrote,” Leonard remembers. “I’ve been digging in the garden for years, looking for it.