Christopher Hitchens, iconoclastic journalist and author, has passed away of complications from esophageal cancer.
Hitchens, who authored nearly 20 books including God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and Hitch 22: A Memoir, was a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the Atlantic, and a columnist at Slate.
In an interview with Atlantic colleague Jeffrey Goldberg following his cancer diagnosis, Hitchens remained a steadfast atheist, allowing that any deathbed conversion to religion would be disingenuous: “The entity making such a remark might be a raving, terrified person whose cancer has spread to the brain,” he said, “I can’t guarantee that such an entity wouldn’t make such a ridiculous remark. But no one recognizable as myself would ever make such a ridiculous remark.”
Hitchens was 62.
See Slate’s full tribute to the life of Christopher Hitchens. Read Slate’s complete collection of Christopher Hitchens’ columns.
