‘Three Cups of Tea’ Co-Author Kills Self

Journalist David Oliver Relin, co-author of the controversial best-selling book “Three Cups of Tea,” took his own life last month in the Columbia River town of Corbett, Oregon, east of Portland, authorities disclosed on Monday.

The cause of Relin’s death on Nov. 15 was listed as suicide by blunt force head injury, said Tom Chappelle, Multnomah County deputy medical examiner, but he declined to give further details. Relin, who lived in Portland, was 49.
Relin, a freelance journalist who wrote for several magazines, became best known for his work with Greg Mortenson on the wildly successful memoir “Three Cups of Tea,” which was first published in 2006 and spent four years on the New York Times bestseller lists.
The book, which sold over 4 million copies, chronicled Mortenson’s failed attempt to climb the mountain K2 in South Asia and his encounter with impoverished Pakistani villagers whom he credited with inspiring him to build schools for young girls and other humanitarian projects in the region.
However, the credibility of the book came under fire in 2011 when the CBS television news program “60 Minutes” aired an expose accusing Mortenson of fabricating or embellishing key details of his story, and using his charitable institute to promote sales of the memoir.
CBS News, for example, disputed Mortenson’s account of being kidnapped in Pakistan’s Waziristan region in 1996.
Mortenson later acknowledged in an interview posted on his institute’s website that the book contains “discrepancies” that resulted from “omissions and compressions” done for the sake of literary expediency. But he insisted the abduction story was “pretty much” true and defended the book overall, saying, “I’m not a journalist. I don’t take a lot of notes.”
Relin said in a 2008 interview with a University of Oregon professor that in addition to interviewing Mortenson extensively, he conducted more than 200 interviews with people tied to Mortenson’s story and traveled three times to northern Pakistan. Relin said he objected to Mortenson getting a co-author credit on the book.
Relin later wrote “Second Suns: Two Doctors and Their Amazing Quest to Restore Sight and Save Lives,” which is scheduled to be released by Random House in June.
A graduate of Vassar College and the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, Relin focused for two decades on reporting about social issues and their effect on children, according to an Iowa Writers biography.
In 1992, he received a University of Iowa fellowship to take a bicycle trip across the length of Vietnam and report on that country’s economic reforms. The biography said he also won more than 40 national awards for work as an editor and writer, and that his stories about child soldiers were including in Amnesty International reports on the subject.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
Opinion Is this new documentary giving voice to American Jewish anguish — or simply stoking fear?
- 3
Fast Forward Trump’s antisemitism chief shares ‘Jew card’ post from white supremacist
- 4
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
In Case You Missed It
-
Sports The Trail Blazers let Deni Avdija cook, and minted a franchise player in the process
-
Fast Forward What Mahmoud Khalil says about Gaza and Israel in ‘The Encampments’ documentary
-
Fast Forward Frankfurt’s Jewish community launches its own sexual abuse hotline amid crises and pressure
-
Fast Forward Trump nixes pro-Israel darling Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be UN ambassador
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.