Matt Cohen (1942-1999) was a Canadian writer.

Cohen was born in Kingston, Ontario. He studied philosophy at the University of Toronto, and taught political philosophy and religion at McMaster University in the late 1960s before publishing his first novel, Korsoniloff, in 1969.

His greatest popular success as a writer was his final novel, Elizabeth and After, which won the 1999 Governor General's Award for English Fiction only a few weeks before his death. He had been nominated twice previously, but had not won, in 1979 for The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone and in 1997 for Last Seen.

A founding member of the Writer's Union of Canada , he served on the executive for many years.

Cohen passed away on December 2, 1999, after a battle with lung cancer. A Canadian literary award, the Matt Cohen Prize, is presented in Cohen's memory.

He also published a number of children's books under the pseudonym Teddy Jam. Cohen's authorship of the Teddy Jam books was not revealed until after his death. The Fishing Summer was also nominated for a Governor General's Award for children's literature in 1997, making Cohen one of the few writers ever to be nominated for Governor General's Awards in two different categories in the same year.

Bibliography

Novels

• Korsoniloff (1969)
• Johnny Crackle Sings (1971)
• The Disinherited (1974)
• Wooden Hunters (1975)
• The Colours of War (1977)
• The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone (1979)
• Flowers of Darkness (1981)
• The Spanish Doctor (1984)
• Nadine (1987)
• Emotional Arithmetic (1990)
• Freud: The Paris Notebooks (1991)
• The Bookseller (1993)
• Last Seen (1997)
• Elizabeth and After (1998)

Short Stories

• Columbus and the Fat Lady (1972)
• Too Bad Galahad (1972)
• Night Flights (1978)
• The Leaves of Louise (1978)
• The Expatriate (1982)
• Café le Dog (1983)
• Life on This Planet (1985)
• Living on Water (1989)
• Lives of the Mind Slaves (1994)
• Getting Lucky (2001)

Poetry

• Peach Melba (1974)
• In Search of Leonardo (1985)

Non-Fiction

• Typing: A Life in 26 Keys (2001)

Children's Literature (as "Teddy Jam")

• Night Cars (1987)
• Doctor Kiss Says Yes (1991)
• The Year of Fire (1993)
• The Charlotte Stories (1994)
• Jacob's Best Sisters (1996)
• The Fishing Summer (1997)
• This New Baby (1998)
• The Stoneboat (1999)
• ttuM (1999)
• The Kid Line (2001)