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Tim Guest on his wedding day with Jo |
Orange author dies at just 34
Tributes as acclaimed writer Guest suffers suspected heart attack
TRIBUTES have been paid to a writer whose bright literary career has been tragically cut short by a suspected heart attack, aged just 34.
Tim Guest, author of the critically acclaimed books My Life in Orange and Second Lives, was found dead in bed by his new wife Jo at their Highgate home on the evening of July 31.
Friends said Mr Guest, who penned his autobiography at the age of 27, was fast becoming a significant name in modern literature when he died.
Jean Hall, a family friend, said: “[Tim] was older than his years, a quirky man who understood words and understood life. You felt there was a lot more besides the person you were talking to. He would have been quite significant in the literary world if he had lived.”
As an only child, Mr Guest lived in a commune in Oak Village linked to the Osho religious movement where followers dyed their clothes orange in demonstration of their beliefs. His mother Anne changed her name to Ma Prem Vismaya when she converted from Catholicism. He was given the name Yogesh.
He detailed his unconventional upbringing, in Gospel Oak and later at the Medina commune in Suffolk, in his first book, My Life in Orange.
He and his mother left the cult when he was 11 and returned to London where he attended Camden’s sixth form college Le Swap before going to Sussex University.
But Mr Guest’s fascination with communes and utopias continued. In 2007 he published his second book, about the online virtual world of Second Life, of which he was an enthusiastic member under the avatar name Errol Mysterio.
Hollywood executives had apparently agreed to option the book as a film.
Mr Guest married Jo, a TV location manager, at Marylebone Town Hall last October.
Even on his wedding day he wore his trademark flat cap.
Mrs Hall added: “It’s been such a shocking week. Jo is inconsolable. She had found her soul-mate.”
Nathaniel Ashford, a friend from university, said: “He was ridiculously full of life, which is one of the sad ironies of these things. He was uniquely intelligent, someone who has always known what he wanted out of life.”
Although Mr Guest will be remembered for his writing, said Mr Ashford, he was also a talented music producer and DJ.
He added: “I am utterly shocked [to hear of his death]. He had such future trajectory. You never doubted for a minute that he would accomplish that mission.” |
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