Leonard Cohen’s early, never-before-published fiction will be collected in a new book, A Ballet of Lepers: A Novel and Stories, set to arrive Oct. 11 via Grove Press.
The book includes several pieces of short fiction, a radio play, and the titular novel, A Grove of Lepers. Cohen wrote everything in the book between 1956 — when he was still living in Montreal — and 1961, when he’d moved to Hydra island in Greece. A Ballet of Lepers: A Novel and Stories was edited by Cohen scholar Alexandra Pleshoyano, who also provided an afterword for the book.
No plot details about any of the pieces were revealed, but per a press release Cohen himself thought A Grove of Leper was “probably a better novel” than his celebrated 1963 book, The Favorite Game. Grove Atlantic deputy publisher, Peter Blackstock, said in a statement that the novel has “a Kerouacian intensity and darkly…
