Matt Cohen has emerged as one of the most prolific experimental prose writers of his generation in Canada. His international reputation, based on the translations of many of his stories into German, French, Russian, Dutch, Hungarian, and the Scandinavian languages, continues to grow. Known chiefly for his novels and short stories, Cohen has also written some fugitive criticism of fiction in Canada, a children's book, The Leaves of Louise (1978), and two volumes of poetry, Peach Melba (1974) and In Search of Leonardo (1986), the latter illustrated by Tony Urquhart. He is a frequent contributor to literary periodicals and in 1983 received the Annual Contributor's Prize from Canadian Fiction magazine for "The Sins of Tomas Benares." The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone (1979) was nominated for the Governor General's Award for fiction.

Cohen, the son of Morris, a chemist, and Beatrice Sohn Cohen, was born in Kingston, Ontario, and educated in Ottawa...