Deborah Orr death: Tributes paid to Guardian columnist after she dies from cancer aged 57

Tributes have poured in for the award-winning journalist and author Deborah Orr following her death aged 57.

Orr, who was diagnosed with cancerl in August, had an illustrious career that spanned decades and has been praised for her "fierce honesty and inspiring work".

Her family confirmed her death this weekend. She is survived by her sons, Ivan and Luther, and her stepchildren, Alexis and Madeleine.

Orr, born in Motherwell in 1962, joined the Guardian in 1990, where she became the first female editor of Weekend magazine before the age of 30.

She then joined the Independent from 1999 until 2009 before returning to the Guardian as a columnist for almost a decade. She joined the i newspaper in 2018.

That same year she got her first book deal for her memoir "Motherwell: A Girlhood", which will be published in early 2020.

Observer columnist and friend Catherine Bennett described Orr as "one of the cleverest, most unconventional, most fearless people on the planet".

Orr is heralded as a journalist "so many young female journalists looked up" to by author Sinead Gleeson.

British writer and playwright Damian Barr said in a tweet: "Deborah Orr terrified and inspired me in equal measure when I first met her over over a decade ago. She blazed a trail from Motherwell and lit the way for so many."

Orr was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 and learned of its return in August. She is reported to have faced the experience with "pitch-black humour" and told friends about it in "defiant detail".

She was known for being unflinching in her approach to reporting and during her time as editor of Weekend she published a series of columns by Oscar Moore about his experience of living with Aids at a time when there was much fear of HIV and misinformation in the media was rife.

As co-creator of the play Enquirer, Orr's commitment to her profession was evident. The play, showcased at the National Theatre of Scotland in 2012, featured real life testimony of 43 journalists and was a piece of work Orr believed vindicated the industry she cared so much about.

One of the anecdotes included in the play was her own. It was about an anxious dream she had while editing Weekend magazine in which an exclusive interview with Bryna Ferry due to feature on the front cover had gone wrong and the dream ends with her killing the stranger.

Greatly revered and admired by her peers, novelist Andrew O’Hagan, told the Guardian: “She was completely inspiring and never knowingly not difficult, but beyond the ferocity, she had a huge heart.”

O’Hagan added: “She said what she thought, and it could be quite bracing, but it was always something she actually did think. She was outspoken, but the things she was speaking about were very original.”

Penny Martin, editor of The Gentlewoman magazine to which Orr contributed, also fondly recalled her formidable reputation.

She said: "I’d heard about Deborah long before I met her – there are some wild stories about her fierce invective and withering put-downs. But she was enormously encouraging to this younger, less experienced Scottish editor. She’s surely one of the funniest, clever journalists I’ve met; a total force and a great dancer, as I remember.”

Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, said that Orr was “a brilliant, clever, funny writer and editor whose uncompromising and insightful approach to her work brought powerful journalism to the Guardian over many years.”

The i's acting managing editor Barbara Speed, said: "Deborah started writing columns for i in 2018 and was an immediate hit with readers for her sense of justice and empathy, and her no-nonsense approach.

"She was a pleasure to edit and work with for the same reasons. We will miss her and her writing enormously."

i arts editor Alice Jones said: "Such a loss. Always slightly terrifying to commission, made up for by the joy of getting her scintillating copy back.

"Her zeal when she liked or was interested in something was terrific."