SALON

Monday, Dec 3, 2012 2:15 PM UTC

“Three Cups of Tea” co-author David Oliver Relin dies at 49

Relin committed suicide on Nov. 14 VIDEO

By

Topics: aol_on, Video, three cups of tea, writer, Afghanistan, david oliver relin, Books, Suicide, obituary, Death, ,

Greg Mortenson, left, with first-graders in a CAI-built shool in Zebak District, Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan, in November, 2011. Mortenson and Relin co-wrote "Three Cups of Tea."(Credit: AP)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — David Oliver Relin, the co-author of the best-selling book “Three Cups of Tea,” died in Oregon, authorities said. He was 49.

Relin committed suicide in the Portland-area town of Corbett on Nov. 14, deputy Multnomah County medical examiner Peter Bellant said late Sunday night.

He said Relin died of blunt force head injury, but declined to provide any other details.

Relin was co-author with Greg Mortenson of “Three Cups of Tea,” which recounts how Mortenson started building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The book came under scrutiny last year when “60 Minutes” and Jon Krakauer alleged that it contained numerous fabrications.

In April, U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon rejected a lawsuit by four people who bought the book, dismissing claims that the two authors, the publisher, and a charity conspired to make Mortenson into a false hero to sell books and raise money for the charity. Haddon called the claims overly broad, flimsy and speculative.

Mortenson had denied any wrongdoing, though he has acknowledged some of the events in “Three Cups of Tea” were compressed over different periods of time. The New York Times reported that Relin did not speak publicly about the charges.

The book describes how Mortenson lost his way after a failed mountaineering expedition and was nursed back to health in a Pakistani village. Based on the villagers’ kindness and the poverty he saw, he resolved to build a school for them.

“Three Cups of Tea,” which has sold about 4 million copies since being published in 2006, was conceived as a way to raise money for and tell the story of Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute, which he co-founded in 1996 to build schools in Central Asia.

Continue Reading Close

More Associated Press.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10
  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 2 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

From Around the Web

Recommendations