Matt Cohen

Un clásico de la novela histórica que denuncia la intolerancia en tiempos de la Inquisición.La cautivadora aventura de un médico judío que se atrevió a vivir según sus principios éticos y desafiar a la autoridad.Abraham Halevi nace en Toledo a finales del siglo xvi. Medico de profundas convicciones, cree en el progreso, la tolerancia y la convivencia entre los pueblos. Tras completar sus estudios en Montpellier, vuelve a Toledo, donde el rico mercader Juan Velazquez lo llama para que asista a su esposa en un parto muy complicado. Abraham practica una cesarea para salvarle la vida, algo extraordinario en la epoca. Sin embargo, su talento como medico no le impide sufrir la intolerancia religiosa. El hermano de Juan, el cardenal Rodrigo Velazquez, quiere limpiar el mundo de herejes musulmanes y judios, y muy pronto, Abraham y su compañera Gabriela deberan huir de Toledo.

Abraham Levi es un judío nacido en la judería de Toledo a finales del siglo XIV, hijo de una mujer violada por los soldados de Enrique de Trastámara que atacaron el barrio y mataron a su marido y su hija mayor. Se siente judio pero sobre todo es uno de los nuevos hombres de la ciencia, que cree en la paz, en la igualdad de todos los hombres y en los nuevos conocimientos que las ciencias y la medicina aportan en este tiempo. Estudia con un anciano arabe y logra marcharse a Montpellier, donde sigue sus estudios en la prestigiosa universidad. Su madre quisiera verlo casado, a ser posible con la bella Gabriela, que ha sido su amante, pero Abraham aun no quiere formar familia. Nada mas volver a Toledo, lo manda llamar con urgencia Juan Velazquez, un rico mercader de la ciudad. Lograra salvar, gracias a una revolucionaria operacion de cesarea, la vida de la mujer y el hijo del mismo Juan Velazquez. Pero ni la amistad con este influyente hombre le libra de la intolerancia religiosa en la recientemente reconquistada ciudad de Toledo.

Abraham Halevi nace en el Toledo de finales del siglo XVI, fruto de una violación de una mujer judía por parte de un soldado cristiano durante el asalto a la ciudad por las tropas de Enrique de Trastamara. Medico de profundas convicciones, cree en el progreso, la tolerancia y la convivencia entre los pueblos. Tras completar sus estudios en Montpellier, vuelve a Toledo donde es llamado por el rico mercader Juan Velazquez para que asista a su esposa en un parto muy complicado. Abraham se gana la amistad de Juan Velazquez al salvar milagrosamente la vida de su esposa y de su hijo gracias a una operacion de cesarea, algo extraordinario para la epoca. Sin embargo, el talento de Abraham como medico no le impide sufrir la intolerancia religiosa ambiente. En efecto, el hermano de Juan, el cardenal Rodrigo Velazquez, quiere limpiar el mundo de herejes musulmanes y judios. Muy pronto, Abraham y su compañera Gabriela deberan huir de Toledo...

Paul Stevens is a bookseller in the marginalized world of used books, a lover of Flaubert and Dickens, young, unsure of himself - until he meets Judith and is drawn into her secret world.

Last Seen, Matt Cohens penultimate novel, was a finalist for the Governor Generals Literary Award and the Trillium Book Award. Last Seen is a darkly comic story of two brothers and a woman who brings them both back to life. Harold, the older brother, is handsome and charming but dying of cancer. Alex is bookish and a scholar in Europe. With Francine, a nurse they both once loved, Alec cares for Harold until he dies. One day, Alec goes into a bar full of Elvis impersonators and there meets Francineand Harold. Why has Harold come back from the dead? In this fragmentary tale of obsessive grieving, Cohen mixes moments of wry humour with touching pathos. Last Seen demonstrates that it takes more than death to untie the knot between two brothers.

Matt Cohen left us all a gift when he decided, in the last six months of his life, to write a memoir. Typing is an invaluable and touching reckoning of the writing life, funny in many places, brilliant in others. Its also the story of the flourishing of writing in Canada: Cohen was at the centre of our countrys cultural life for over three decades. He was one of the founders of the Writers Union; he was the brains behind many initiatives, including the successful lobbying for the public lending right; he was a translator of Quebec writers into English. After his death, it became clear that Cohen was a touchstone for many writers and readers in this country, at the same time as he was a dedicated outsider, a Jewish intellectual moving through a WASPish cultural woods.Typing includes rare and wonderful portraits of George Grant, Hugh Garner, Morley Callaghan and Margaret Laurence, writers who came ahead of him and who posed their own puzzles of recognition and success. Cohens memoir is rich in recollection, from his early days at Rochdale writing hip, stream-of-consciousness novels to his move to a farm near Kingston, Ontario, where the southern Ontario landscape captured his imagination and inspired such novels as The Disinherited, The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone and, years later, Elizabeth and After. Through the ebbs and flows of literary fashion and worldly acclaim, Cohen stayed constant to the demands of fiction.This memoir ends in the present tense. Cohen had a novel he wanted to finish, and he was certain he wouldnt die before he was done. He wasnt so lucky, but we, at least, have these last pages in which Matt Cohens voice is utterly alive.

The Disinherited, first published in 1974, is one of Matt Cohens four novels that came to be known as the Salem quartet--stories set in the fictional town of Salem in eastern Ontario, somewhere north of Kingston in the rugged farmland and forest of the Canadian Shield. These are the novels that first brought Matt Cohen to national attention. As with his Governor Generals Award-winning novel, Elizabeth and After, The Disinherited is a novel of love and the land and their impact on a family dynasty, of the gradual encroachment of the modern-day city and its developers, and of the familys struggle against the threat of disintegration.

The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone, first published in 1979, is one of Matt Cohens four novels that came to be known as the Salem quartet--stories set in the fictional town of Salem in eastern Ontario, somewhere north of Kingston in the rugged farmland and forest of the Canadian Shield. These are the novels that first brought Matt Cohen to national attention. The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone, a story about the pleasure of love that comes late in life, centres on the lives of two time-worn characters whose pursuit of happiness is strangely rewarded. With The Disinherited, another of the Salem novels, this is considered among the authors best works.

Abraham Halevi nace en Toledo a finales del siglo xvi. Médico de profundas convicciones, cree en el progreso, la tolerancia y la convivencia entre los pueblos. Tras completar sus estudios en Montpellier, vuelve a Toledo, donde el rico mercader Juan Velazquez lo llama para que asista a su esposa en un parto muy complicado. Abraham practica una cesarea para salvarle la vida, algo extraordinario en la epoca. Sin embargo, su talento como medico no le impide sufrir la intolerancia religiosa. El hermano de Juan, el cardenal Rodrigo Velazquez, quiere limpiar el mundo de herejes musulmanes y judios, y muy pronto, Abraham y su compañera Gabriela deberan huir de Toledo.