Saturday 3 January 2015

The death of the writer who sold novels in 25 countries but ended up a recluse with just a euro coin

Author Marsha Mehran, who was found dead alone in a rubbish strewn cottage in County Mayo in April last year 

She was the well-known author whose debut novel was an international best-seller and was sold in more than 25 countries.
But when she died last year, Marsha Mehran appeared to be living a solitary life on the west coast of Ireland with her only assets a one euro coin and a five dollar note.
And now eight months on, mystery still surrounds exactly what happened to the once successful Iranian-born author.

Ms Mehran, 36, was reportedly found dead alone in a rubbish strewn cottage in Lecanvey, County Mayo by the property's letting agent after messages to her had gone unanswered.
It is believed she had been dead for more than a week but a recent inquest held in Ireland could not establish a cause of death.
Ms Mehran was best-known for her debut novel Pomegranate Soup, which was an international best-seller
Ms Mehran was best-known for her debut novel Pomegranate Soup, which was an international best-seller
Ms Mehran, who was born in Tehran moved to Argentina with her family as a child after their plans to move to the U.S. fell through due to the storming of the American embassy in Iran.
After a stint living in Argentina, the family finally moved to Brooklyn in New York, however, her visa was revoked when she was 17 for a minor infringement.
She then spent time travelling and it was in 1999 when visiting New York, that she met her future husband, Irish-born Christopher Collins.
The couple eventually married in Australia soon after before settling down in County Mayo.
In 2005, she released her debut novel Pomegranate Soup, which tells the story of three Iranian sisters who try to win over a community in rural Ireland.
It became an interntational best-seller and was favourably rated by the critics.
She followed it up with her second novel, Rosewater and Soda Bread in 2008 but in the same year, she divorced her husband.
And speaking for the first time since her death, Mr Collins, who now runs a bar company in Brooklyn told the Independent: 'We could tell we were right for each other. There was a synergy between us – it was nice to have somebody who was as passionate about you as you were about them.
'Marsha was battling her own demons. I think she lived some of the fantasies that she wrote and withdrew from real life. It was difficult to watch. The people she knew, she pushed away little by little. She could never accept help – it was one of her strengths and one of her greatest problems.'
In the months leading up to her death, Ms Mehran had been working on her latest novel, The Margaret Thatcher School of Beauty, which details her life in Argentina as the Falklands War looms.


The inquest into her death also heard she had a history of vomiting blood and inflammatory bowel disease.
And in an afterword published in the book, which was released posthumously last month, her father, Abbas wrote: 'As far as I am aware, these conditions persisted for more than five years, ending with her death.'
He added: 'She had been suffering from an extreme physical sickness, which suddenly overtook her ability to control her situation and her mental consciousness, in a way that she did not know what she was doing. She became so sick that she could not call out for help.'

Dailymail

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