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Cape Town - Renowned financial journalist Greta Steyn has died after committing suicide last week, her mother said in a report.
Steyn was found dead in Sandton last week after overdosing on medication, Business Day reported.
"Greta Louise Steyn passed away on Wednesday the 6th of February. She was 49 years old," her mother Anna Steyn told the publication.
Steyn had lived a life of solitude during her career in media, her mother said.
"She passed away tragically last week. She’s lived alone all of her adult life and she was very lonely. I think things got really bad for her," she said.
Steyn worked at Business Day for almost 15 years. She wrote for Finweek and was a much appreciated contributor to Fin24, with a respected and well-read weekly column. She was also a speech writer at the Reserve Bank at one point.
Steyn was an accomplished financial journalist who won numerous awards for her work, including the Sanlam Financial Journalist of The Year Award in 1996.
According to Business Day she was diagnosed as clinically bipolar and, her mother Anna said, had not been taking her medication at the time of her death.
Former editor and BDFM publisher Peter Bruce called Steyn "one of the best economics journalists in her generation".
A former colleague and long-time friend Diana Games said:
"Greta was a loyal friend with a great sense of humour and a witty outlook
on life.
"Her volatile personality did make it difficult for people to get close to her, but underneath a fairly tough exterior, she cared deeply about issues and the people close to her."
Tim Cohen from the Business Day called Steyn a "remarkable journalist whose incisive brain liked nothing better than to sift complex data and examine issues from various angles".
