The Longest Now

Mehran Nasseri, the man famous for being unable to leave Charles de Gaulle airport, and later refusing to leave once the opportunity arose, has produced and published his own haunting memoirs.   And he has been subjected to many reconstructions of his life, but few of them balanced, or providing current context. 

Questions that remain unanswered : is he mentally ill or not?  If so, how?  Who in particular does he correspond with?  Now that he is living outside the airport: does he try to return?  Does he have any money from the productions in which he has been involved — the Dreamworks/Tom Hanks fim “The Terminal“, the sales of his memoirs?  Does his lawyer, who both fought for his rights in court before his fame grew and helped sell his life story to DreamWorks, sit pretty on resources he himself will never enjoy?  And if so, is it because he is unable or unwilling to enjoy them?

My own brief post about him four years ago has since then gathered comments from many of the different perspectives on his life.  Recently it sprang to life again — linked to from a Persian site, perhaps — and made me wonder again about Nasseri’s fate.

Every four years I wonder about this — I remember first discovering his story just over a decade agom before he had been allowed to leave by the French; eight years ago I was following up to see if he was still there or not; it was difficult to make out.  Four years ago I was searching for new information, leading to my blog post — at the time he had not yet been removed to a hospital.   And now I search again, inspired by my commenters, to discover that (aside from a somewhat referenced Wikipedia article and a copycat in the UK) there is little more known today.

If you have met or spoken with him, or discover a useful resource about his life post-CDG, please let me know.  It would be fascinating to many to know of his interactions with the outside world… and of how he now gets books and papers to read.