Nuala O'Faolain -- a journalist and feminist who gained international fame with her outspoken 1996 memoir "Are You Somebody?" -- died Friday of lung cancer, weeks after revealing her illness on state radio. She was 68.
O'Faolain emphasized during her April 12 radio interview that she had no faith in the afterlife, and instead rued the imminent loss of her lifetime's accrual of education, friends and experience.
O'Faolain, who was a University College Dublin lecturer in literature before becoming one of Ireland's best-known journalists, said the lung cancer had spread to her liver, and brain tumors had ruined her ability to concentrate.
"Beauty means nothing to me anymore. I tried to read [Marcel] Proust again recently, but it has gone -- the magic has gone. It amazed me how quickly my life turned black," she said in the interview.
The broadcast inspired a national discussion about how Ireland cares for its terminally ill.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
