Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens lost the battle with cancer on BrowseBiography

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Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens lost the battle with cancer

The British-born author and journalist Christopher Hitchens died after he lost the battle with esophageal cancer, Vanity Fair announced on Thursday.

Known for his best-seller "God is Not Great" a manifesto for atheists, Christopher died of pneumonia, as a complication of the cancer he was struggling with since June 2010, according to the magazine. He was 62.

"I love the imagery of struggle," he wrote about his illness in an August 2010 essay in Vanity Fair. "I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient."

Born in Portsmouth in 1949, Hitchens became a journalist in 1970 when he graduated from Oxford. Later moved to New York, and became an editor for the Vanity Fair. In an August 2010 essay for the magazine he wrote: "I love the imagery of struggle." "I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient."

He was a militant humanist who believed in pluralism and racial justice and freedom of speech. He also was a good firend, as he stood up for his fellow author Salman Rushdie during public frenzy which followed publication of his novel "The Satanic Verses".

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter described the writer as someone "of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar". "Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls."


 
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