A Ballet of Lepers cover art

A Ballet of Lepers

A Novel and Stories

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free + £10 Audible voucher

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

A Ballet of Lepers

By: Leonard Cohen
Narrated by: Ottessa Moshfegh
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.39

Buy Now for £12.39

An unprecedented glimpse into the formation of the legendary talent of Leonard Cohen. Before the celebrated late-career world tours, before the Grammy awards, before the chart-topping albums, before 'Hallelujah' and 'So Long, Marianne' and 'Famous Blue Raincoat', the young Leonard Cohen wrote poetry and fiction and yearned for literary stardom. In A Ballet of Lepers, readers will discover that the magic that animated Cohen's unforgettable body of work was present from the very beginning. Written between 1956 in Montreal, just as Cohen was publishing his first poetry collection, and 1961, when he'd settled on Greece's Hydra island, the pieces in this collection offer startling insight into Cohen's imagination and creative process, and explore themes that would permeate his later work, from shame and unworthiness to sexual desire to longing, whether for love, family, freedom or transcendence. The titular novel, A Ballet of Lepers - one he later remarked was 'probably a better novel' than his celebrated book The Favourite Game - is a haunting examination of these elements, while the fifteen stories, as well as the playscript, probe the inner demons of his characters, many of whom could function as stand-ins for the author himself. Meditative, surprising, playful and provocative, A Ballet of Lepers is vivid in its detail, unsparing in its gaze, and reveals the great artist and visceral genius like never before. Anthologies & Short Stories Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Short Stories
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

Critic reviews

Praise for The Flame: The last word in love and despair . . . Full of youthful spark, beauty and romance . . . Elegantly and posthumously published . . . Leonard Cohen does not use language to pose, startle or reinvent. Words are his old comrades, and see him through to the end
Cohen was a poet before he was a musician, and with this posthumous collection his career completes its circle. Encompassing poems and lyrics written in his last decade, as well as self-portraits and notebook extracts, the book is introduced by his son Adam Cohen
Cohen's enduring, beautiful bleakness is the draw here. His gift for understated melancholia is on each blackening page
We'll be listening to Cohen - still smirking and smiling - for decades to come, with this collection as our companion
For his final publication, he left almost nothing to chance . . . The Flame shows the emphasis that Cohen put on distillation . . . Included in various proportions are love, sex, death, regret, exaltation, piety and gentle fondness. The blending of the earthy with the spiritual would give John Donne and Marvin Gaye a run for their money
The Flame is a gift . . . These poems and lyrics are as startling and stirring, as clever, funny and sorrowful as we came to expect from a poet/singer/songwriter . . . [A] treasure trove
If you felt Leonard Cohen's death in 2016 as a personal assault, this book is a posthumous balm . . . All of Cohen's work has a raw, straight-to-the-heart intensity - reach for this the next time you need inspiration for a wedding toast that will leave them gutted, or any other moment you need a little sustenance for the soul
Cohen's final volume shows his poetic soul. If you know the man only because of "Hallelujah" or "Suzanne," pick up The Flame and warm yourself within its pages
It's clear that Cohen remained sharp until the very end, and the book, a kind of farewell tribute by the poet-prophet, offers ample evidence of his abiding sense of humor . . . What Cohen offered his many fans and followers was the opportunity to partake of the kind of spiritual experience that makes it possible for us to feel, if only for a moment, that we are not alone
A gorgeous collection of the late, great Leonard Cohen's last poems and writings, it's an essential read for any fan
No reviews yet