A compelling guest wherever he appeared, particularly with the like minded Bill Maher.
In June 2010, Hitchens was on tour in New York promoting his memoirs Hitch-22 when he was taken into emergency care suffering from a severe pericardial effusion. Soon after, he announced he was postponing his tour to undergo treatment for oesophageal cancer.[158]
Illness and death[edit]
In a Vanity Fair piece titled "Topic of Cancer,"[61] he stated that he was undergoing treatment for cancer. He said that he recognised the long-term prognosis was far from positive and he would be a "very lucky person to live another five years."[159] A heavy smoker and drinker since his teenage years, Hitchens acknowledged that these habits were likely to have contributed to his illness.[160]
During his illness, Hitchens was under the care of Francis Collins and was the subject of Collins's new cancer treatment, which maps out the human genome and selectively targets damaged DNA.[161]
Hitchens died of pneumonia on 15 December 2011 in the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, aged 62.[156] In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to medical research.[162] Mortality, a collection of seven of Hitchens's Vanity Fair essays about his illness, was published posthumously in September 2012.[163]
Reactions to death[edit]
Former British prime minister Tony Blair and Hitchens at the Munk debate on religion, Toronto, November 2010 Former British prime minister Tony Blair said, "Christopher Hitchens was a complete one-off, an amazing mixture of writer, journalist, polemicist, a unique character.
He was fearless in the pursuit of truth and any cause in which he believed. And there was no belief he held that he did not advocate with passion, commitment, and brilliance. He was an extraordinary, compelling, and colourful human being whom it was a privilege to know."[165]
Richard Dawkins said of Hitchens, "He was a polymath, a wit, immensely knowledgeable, and a valiant fighter against all tyrants, including imaginary supernatural ones."[165] Dawkins later described Hitchens as "probably the best orator I've ever heard", and his death "an enormous loss".[166]
American theoretical physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss said, "Christopher was a beacon of knowledge and light in a world that constantly threatens to extinguish both. He had the courage to accept the world for just what it is and not what he wanted it to be. That's the highest praise, I believe, one can give to any intellect.
He understood that the universe doesn't care about our existence or welfare, and he epitomized the realization that our lives have meaning only to the extent that we give them meaning."[167][168]
Bill Maher paid tribute to Hitchens on his show Real Time with Bill Maher, saying, "We lost a hero of mine, a friend, and one of the great talk show guests of all time."[169] Salman Rushdie and English comedian Stephen Fry paid tribute at the Christopher Hitchens Vanity Fair Memorial 2012.[
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