Un ballet de leprosos

A novel and completely unpublished stories by the legendary musician, singer-songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen.In Un ballet de leprosos, the unpublished novel that gives the book its title, a young man is forced to take in his grandfather, who has no one else, in the nursing home where he lives. The grandfather's unpredictable and violent nature, however, triggers a visceral transformation in the grandson, one that leads him to unleash unexpected impulses that will affect everyone around him. In addition to this relentlessly sarcastic novel, fifteen short stories and a screenplay written between 1956 and 1961 see the light of day for the first time, offering a unique insight into Leonard Cohen's imagination and creative evolution, while exploring themes that would permeate his work: from shame and sexual desire to longing, whether for love, family, freedom or transcendence. Accordingly, the stories in the volume, energetic and full of irony, reveal the inner demons of the characters, many of whom easily evoke the same author.Straddling the most earthly realism and the gift for elevation so characteristic of Leonard Cohen in his lyrics, A Ballet of Lepers is a book very vivid in details and with a young and impertinent look, a new window into the art of 'a master of telling stories.