Montreal is not alone in mourning Leonard Cohen.
Around the world, fans are paying tribute to the Montreal-born troubadour. From Greece to the United Kingdom to Israel, the death of the poet-singer-songwriter has been front-page news.
France’s Libération newspaper devoted the first 15 pages of its Saturday edition to Cohen and his legacy. The main headline: “No way to say goodbye.”
France’s Libération newspaper.
“Some of the words in his songs are among the greatest English poetic works of the twentieth century,” Libération said. “Some of his poems have been more read and adored than many popular songs.”
The Guardian, a British newspaper, described Cohen as a “master of erotic despair” who “took a sardonic view of both his craft and the human condition.”
The British newspaper The Guardian.
Cohen died in Los Angeles and was buried in Montreal last week.
Locally, fans have flocked to his Plateau-Mont-Royal home, leaving flowers and candles outside and, on Saturday, took part in a farewell sing-along.
The Los Angeles Times said “Cohen’s voice was that of a trusted friend sharing confidences late at night, a source of depth rather than breadth.” The words in his songs “resonate with wit, self-judgment, empathy and grace.”
NRC Handelsblad of the Netherlands.
Cohen once said that in “any crisis in Israel I would be there. I am committed to the survival of the Jewish people.”
On the front page of the Jerusalem Post Sunday, Cohen was remembered as an “artist, mensch and high priest of song.”
“Leonard Cohen was many things – novelist, poet, singer-songwriter – but he was also a proud Jew, a true mensch and a lover of Zion,” the newspaper noted. “Not many foreign pop stars could be eulogized by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as someone who ‘loved the people of Israel and the State of Israel.'”
The Irish Times newspaper.
The Irish Times published a four-page tribute supplement on the weekend.
It described Cohen as “a mournful, sonorous baritone who spoke-sang about sex and spirituality (who) was also a ladies’ man who two-timed as a Zen Buddhist, a poet who plumbed despair with the panache of a stand-up comic, and a cultural hero who only ever begrudgingly accepted his late-in-life career success and personal happiness.”
Greece’s Kathimerini newspaper.
Italy’s Il Messagero newspaper.
