Lester Cohen

August 17, 1901 – July 17, 1963

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Lester Cohen (August 17, 1901 - July 17, 1963) was an American novelist, screenwriter and author of non-fiction. He is best known as the author of the novels Sweepings and Coming Home, and the screen play for Of Human Bondage. Cohen was the author of nine published books, two (or more) unpublished works (including The Fabulous World of Horace Liveright about the founder of Boni-Liveright Publishers and his circle, and Fallen Nation, an epic unfinished at the time of his death); six full-length stage plays, many short plays and scripts for television; poetry; articles and stories for periodicals; reviews and editorials for Variety; and many screen plays and treatments for motion pictures. Cohen was a member of the Dreiser Committee which visited the Kentucky coal fields in 1931 to document the labor struggles of Harlan County coal miners. John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson and other notable American writers were also on this committee and contributed to the written report produced by Dreiser. Cohen was a member of the League of American Writers, an affiliation of communists and communist sympathizers that was active between 1935 and 1943. It is uncertain how long he was a member or how deeply he was committed to communism. Cohen represented the American League for a Free Palestine at the first United Nations Conference in San Francisco in 1945. Cohen was a founding member of the Screen Writers’ Guild and was a member of the Authors’ Guild of America from 1926 to his death in 1963. He had no political or religious affiliations.