Leonard Cohen in French culture : a song of love and hate : a comparison between musical and literary translation

Since his comeback on stage in 2008, Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) has been portrayed in the surprisingly monolithic image of a singer-songwriter who broke through in the '60s and whose works have been increasingly categorised as 'classics'. In this article, I will examine his trajectory through several cultural systems, i.e. his entrance into both the French literary and musical systems in the late '60s and early '70s. This is an example of mediation brought about by both individual people and institutions in both the source and target cultures. Cohen's texts do not only migrate between geo-politically defined source and target cultures (Canada and France), but also between institutionally defined musical and literary systems within one single geo-political context (France). All his musical albums were reviewed and distributed there soon after their release and almost his entire body of literary works (novels and poetry collections) has been translated into French. Nevertheless, Cohen's reception has never been univocal, either in terms of the representation of the artist or in terms of the evaluation of his works, as this article concludes