The writer and journalist Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62 after being diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in June 2010.
According to the Guardian, the reactions to his illness from his intellectual opponents testified to his stature as one of the leading voices of secularism since the publication in 2007 of his anti-religious polemic God is Not Great. The reaction from the author himself, who after a lifetime of "burning the candle of both ends" described his illness as "something so predictable and banal that it bores even me", testified to the sharpness of his wit and the clarity of his thinking under fire, as he dissected the discourse of "struggle" that surrounds cancer and paid tribute to the medical staff who looked after him.
According to the Guardian, the reactions to his illness from his intellectual opponents testified to his stature as one of the leading voices of secularism since the publication in 2007 of his anti-religious polemic God is Not Great. The reaction from the author himself, who after a lifetime of "burning the candle of both ends" described his illness as "something so predictable and banal that it bores even me", testified to the sharpness of his wit and the clarity of his thinking under fire, as he dissected the discourse of "struggle" that surrounds cancer and paid tribute to the medical staff who looked after him.