Bernard Cohen was born in Lansing, Michigan, to Australian parents in 1963, and came to Australia at the age of nine months. He studied at the University of Technology Sydney. Since 1985, his stories and articles have appeared in newspapers, magazines and literary journals in Australia, New Zealand, the US and France. His first novel, Tourism was published in 1992. Cohen received a grant from the Australia Council to take up a residency at the Nancy Keesing Studio, Paris.
In 1996 he won the Australian/Vogel Literary Award with The Blindman's Hat which was published in 1997. The novel tells of an Australian journalist who leaves his job on a New York newspaper after ten years to devote himself to love. Instead he finds himself investigating a murder while being pursued by his employers. Cohen has published further novels, worked on a collaborative book with John Kinsella, McKenzie Wark and Terri-Ann White and has written a children's picture book text, Paul Needs Specs.
In 2002 Cohen was writer-in-residence at Sir John Soame's Museum (London) and University College Worcester.