Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Eric Hitchens, the incisive essayist and provocateur of letters, lived from April 13, 1949 to December 15, 2011. His career was marked by a relentless pursuit of truth and an unwavering commitment to challenging the status quo.

Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, England, into a family with strong literary inclinations. His father, Eric Hitchens, was a naval officer and author, while his brother Peter is also known as a journalist and writer for The Mail on Sunday. Growing up in post-war Britain, Christopher developed an early interest in politics and literature.

After graduating from the prestigious Balliol College at the University of Oxford with first-class honors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE), Hitchens embarked on a career that would see him become one of the most influential voices in contemporary journalism. He worked for several newspapers including The Economist, the New Statesman, and The Nation, where he was an editor from 1978 to 2006.

Hitchens’s reputation soared with his trenchant critiques of religion, politics, and popular culture. His books such as God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, published in 2007, earned him both acclaim and controversy. He was nominated for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1985 for his work on Henry Kissinger.

Despite being married twice—first to Eleni Meleagrou in 1976 and then to Carol Blue in 2003—Hitchens’s personal life was often overshadowed by his public persona. He had one child, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, from his first marriage.

Hitchens died on December 15, 2011, after a three-year battle with esophageal cancer. His legacy is marked not only by his prolific output and influential essays but also by his unapologetic stance against hypocrisy in politics and religion, which continues to inspire and provoke debate.