Richard A Cohen (born 9 May 1947) is a retired British fencer who competed at three

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

and the author of four books, ''Making History, The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past,'' ''Chasing the Sun'', the story of man's relationship to that star, ''How to Write Like Tolstoy, A Journey into the Minds of Our Greatest Writers,'' and ''By the Sword'', a history of sword fighting. He is the founder of the book publisher Richard Cohen Books.

Fencing career

Cohen was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, England, to a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother. He learned to fence while at

Downside School Downside School (formally The College of St Gregory the Great, Downside but simply referred to as Downside) is an 11–18 mixed, Roman Catholic, independent, day and boarding school in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Somerset, England. It was establish ...

, near Bath. He was a five times British fencing champion, winning the

sabre A sabre or saber ( ) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the Early Modern warfare, early modern and Napoleonic period, Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such a ...

title at the

British Fencing Championships The British Fencing Championships are held annually to determine the British champion. The Championships are currently held at the English Institute of Sport, Sheffield or the Lee Valley Athletics Centre. These championships (known as the Nationa ...

in 1974, 1980, 1982, 1986 and 1987. He 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 A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...

. He was Commonwealth sabre champion in 1982 and won the prestigious Paris Open in 1981. He represented

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

and won a

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

in the team sabre and a

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receives ...

in the individual sabre, at the

1970 British Commonwealth Games The 1970 British Commonwealth Games were held in Edinburgh, Scotland, from 16 to 25 July 1970. This was the first time the name British Commonwealth Games was adopted, the first time metric units rather than imperial units were used in all eve ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, 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 won the national veteran saber championships a record fourteen times.

Publishing career

While competing as a fencer, he worked for book publishers, editing much of the early work of

Jeffrey Archer Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English novelist and former politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Louth (Lincolnshire) from 1969 to 1974, but did not seek re-election after a fina ...

, as well as John le Carre, Anthony Burgess, Kingsley Amis, Sebastian Faulks and Fay Weldon. In 1985 he became publishing director of Hutchinson and in 1992 of

Hodder & Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.H ...

. In 1995 he founded his own publishers, Richard Cohen Books, which won the ''Sunday Times'' Small publisher of the Year award in 1998. In 1991 and 1992 he was program director of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, recording world record audiences of over 30,000 both years, and from 2000 till 2007 was a visiting professor of creative writing at the University of Kingston-upon-Thames in London, England. Since moving to America in 1999, he has edited the No. 1 bestseller Leadership by

Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani ( , ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and Disbarment, disbarred lawyer who served as the 107th mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney ...

, all seven books by

Madeleine Albright Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Körbelová, later Korbelová; May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was an American diplomat and political science, political scientist who served as the 64th United States Secretary of State, United S ...

, David Boies' '' Courting Justice,'' and the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Malcolm X by

Manning Marable William Manning Marable (May 13, 1950 – April 1, 2011) was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Marable founded and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studi ...

. Cohen wrote a history of swordplay, ''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), featured on BBC's ''

Book of the Week ''Book of the Week'' is a long-running BBC Radio 4 series, first broadcast in 1998. It features daily readings from an abridged version of a selected book read over five or occasionally ten weekday episodes. Each episode is approximately 15 min ...

'' broadcast 13–17 December 2010, Random House, a book about literature and how to write, ''How To Write Like Tolstoy'', May 2016, Random House, and ''Making History'' (2022), Simon & Schuster, a history of historians from

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

to the present day (a BBC ''Book of the Week'' for two weeks). He appeared in the James Bond film ''

Die Another Day ''Die Another Day'' is a 2002 spy film and the twentieth film in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions. It was directed by Lee Tamahori, produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, and written by Neal Purvis and Rober ...

'' (2002).

Personal life

Cohen has two sons and a daughter and lives in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

with his wife Kathy Robbins, a literary agent. His son Guy Cohen won a bronze medal for Great Britain at the

2013 Maccabiah Games The 19th Maccabiah () were held during July 18 to 30, 2013. The Games brought together 7,500 competing athletes, making it the third-largest international sporting event in the world after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. The Maccabiah he ...

in men's épée, and his daughter Mary fenced in épée, Richard Cohen in both foil and saber. His daughter, Mary (born 1986), was British épée champion in 2006, 2011 and 2018, and was a member of the British team at World and European championships from 2002 till 2019. In 2010 father (for Northern Ireland) and daughter (for England) competed in the same Commonwealth championships, the first father and daughter to do so, Cohen at age 63 coming 12th in the saber and winning the veterans saber (over 40), a first gold medal for Northern Ireland in Commonwealth fencing. In June 2017 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

References

External links

Official websiteBritish Olympic Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Richard 1947 births Living people Sportspeople from Birmingham, West Midlands People educated at Downside School English writers British male fencers Olympic fencers for Great Britain Fencers at the 1972 Summer Olympics Fencers at the 1976 Summer Olympics Fencers at the 1984 Summer Olympics Commonwealth Games gold medallists in fencing Commonwealth Games bronze medallists in fencing Commonwealth Games gold medallists for England Commonwealth Games bronze medallists for England English people of Jewish descent Competitors at the 2013 Maccabiah Games Maccabiah Games fencers Maccabiah Games competitors for Great Britain Fencers at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games Medallists at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature