Tony Cohan
Tony Cohan (born December 28, 1939) is an American travel writer, novelist, and lyricist. His best-known travel book is On Mexican Time, about his life in Mexico. His novels Canary and Opium received notable recognition, and his memoir Native State was named a Los Angeles Times Notable Book of the Year. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Times of London.
Cohan grew up as a jazz drummer and studied at Stanford University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. In the early 1960s he played with famous musicians in Europe, including Dexter Gordon and Bud Powell in Copenhagen, and Tete Montoliu and Memphis Slim in Barcelona. He later worked as a studio musician with artists such as Lowell George and Ry Cooder. In the 1970s he designed media campaigns for musicians including Van Morrison, Pink Floyd, and Prince.
As a lyricist with pianist Chick Corea, he contributed to pieces like "High Wire: The Aerialist" and the Grammy-winning "Bud Powell," with piano-based stories performed on NPR. In 1975 he founded Acrobat Books, an independent press.
Cohan and his former wife Masako Takahashi moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in 1985. The town became the subject of On Mexican Time. He now divides his time between Guanajuato City, Mexico, and California. In recent years he has returned to writing fiction, with two completed novels and a third in progress, and he publishes the newsletter Writing Unchained, which includes two novels, Valparaíso and The Coast.
More information is available at tonycohan.com.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 07:05 (CET).