Nationality British Website richardcohenauthor.com Name Richard Cohen | Residence New York City Sport Fencing | |
Born 9 May 1947 (age 76) ( 1947-05-09 ) Birmingham, England Country England (1970-1986); Northern Ireland (1986-present) | ||
Richard Cohen (born 9 May 1947) is a British fencer who competed at three Olympic Games and the author of Chasing the Sun, the story of man's relationship to that star, and By the Sword, a history of sword fighting. He is the founder of the book publisher Richard Cohen Books.
Career
Cohen was born in Birmingham, England. He learned to fence while at Downside School, near Bath. He was British Sabre Champion five times and was selected for the British team in four Olympics from 1972 to 1984, although he did not compete at the Moscow Olympics because of a sporting boycott.
While competing as a fencer, he worked for book publishers, editing much of the early work of Jeffrey Archer, and became a publishing director of Hutchinson and Hodder & Stoughton. He went on to found his own publishers, Richard Cohen Books, which won the Sunday Times Small publisher of the Year award in 1998. Since moving to America in 1999, he has edited books by Rudy Giuliani, all five books by Madeleine Albright, David Boies, and the Pulitzer Prizewinning biography of Malcolm X by Manning Marable. Cohen wrote a history of fencing, By the Sword (2002), with the subtitle A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions.; a large-scale history of the Sun, Chasing the Sun, The Epic Story of the Star that Gives Us Life, 2010, Random House and a book about literature and how to write, How To Write Like Tolstoy, May 2016, Random House. He appeared in the James Bond film, Die Another Day (2002).
Cohen was World Veterans’ Sabre Champion in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009 and has been European sabre champion nine times, making him the most successful single-weapon fencer of veteran fencing. He has two sons and a daughter and lives in New York City with his wife Kathy Robbins, a literary agent. His daughter, Mary (born 1986), was British épée champion in 2006 and 2011 and has been a member of the British team at World and European championships. In 2010 father (for Northern Ireland) and daughter (for England) competed in the same Commonwealth championships, the first father and daughter to do so.