Posted on 06/30/2010 7:29:51 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
AUTHOR, journalist and public intellectual Christopher Hitchens has announced he has cancer of the oesophagus and will undergo treatment.
Hitchens revealed his condition in a three-sentence statement on the website of Vanity Fair, a magazine to which he regularly contributes, and said he would have to cut short his current book tour.
“I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my oesophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me. I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice,” Hitchens said.
The English-born Hitchens, 61, was in the middle of a book tour to promote his newly released memoir Hitch 22.
He visited Australia in May this year, being a star attraction at the Sydney Writers Festival.
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Hitchens, a noted enfant terrible in the literary world, is a well-known public figure who appears regularly on TV and has had his work published in myriad magazines including The New Statesman, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate & The Nation. He also published several books including his recent atheist tome “God is Not Great.”
He is well-known for his prolific consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. It was reported that the chain-smoking Hitchens gave up smoking cigarettes in 2008, though a profile piece in the Washington Post earlier this month showed that he was still indulging in the habit.
In 2003 he famously quipped that his daily intake of alcohol was enough “to kill or stun the average mule”.
Hitchens, once a darling of the left, famously underwent an ideological shift in recent years, especially after 9/11, that saw him support the Iraq war and lose the support of many of his former admirers.
Hitchens became an American citizen in 2007. He currently lives in Washington DC with his wife Carol.
Hey, I wish him well and God speed.
God loves him and I pray for his help, I pray he may get to know God. Peace.
I hope he beats the odds.
Congratulations then.
My prayer him is that he would come to a saving faith in Jesus.
Amen! Well put.
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