Leonard Cohen's Book of Mercy sets prayer, longing and struggle side by side in psalm-like prose. Doron B. Cohen reads it closely and traces where its language comes from.

Readical Key Points

• A commentary on Leonard Cohen's Book of Mercy, his prose poems in the manner of psalms
• Traces the book's sources in Jewish tradition, Zen practice, Christian imagery, and poetry old and new, according to the publisher
• Informed by the author's work translating Book of Mercy into Modern Hebrew, as one commendation notes
• Paperback, 140 pages, Wipf & Stock, 2026

The publisher presents Book of Mercy as Cohen's own psalter, which it notes has served in liturgy and appeared in over a dozen languages, and in which prayer sits beside erotic longing and ordinary worldly trouble. Doron B. Cohen's interpretation works through the prose poems and identifies the allusions under them, then sets out what they suggest about Cohen's theology and his craft as a writer.

Readers of Cohen's poetry, students of religion and literature, and readers who pray with the psalms will find a close account of how a modern poet rewrote the form. One commendation describes reading the two books side by side, and a copy of Book of Mercy is worth keeping open alongside this one.

About the Author

Doron B. Cohen has lectured at the Graduate School of Theology of Doshisha University in Kyoto and is the author of The Japanese Translations of the Hebrew Bible: History, Inventory and Analysis (2013).

Condition: Brand New and Readical Ready.

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