Christopher Hitchens RIP

The British-born writer, critic and journalist Christopher Hitchens has died, aged 62. He was suffering from oesophageal cancer. Hitchens was an entertaining and witty but vitreolic critic of all religions and religious people. Among the people he attacked personally was Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict.

Born into a navy family in Portsmouth in 1949 he graduated from Oxford in 1970. He began his career in the UK and later moved to New York, where he became contributing editor to Vanity Fair in November 1992.

In his younger days he was left wing and was expelled from the Labour Party over his opposition to the Vietnam war. But after the September 11 attacks he moved to the right, supporting the war on Iraq and backing George W Bush for re-election in 2004.

In 2007 his book 'God Is Not Great' became a best seller. He maintained his atheism after being diagnosed with cancer in 2010, telling the BBC recently that if he did discover that was life after he died he would be able to say he had not tried to "curry favour". He said in another interview: "No evidence or argument has yet been presented which would change my mind. But I like surprises."

Atheist writer and campaigner Richard Dawkins said Hitchens had been a "wonderful mentor" and a "valiant fighter against all tyrants including God".

Christopher Hitchens was diagnosed with cancer in June 2010. In August last year he wrote: "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 is survived by his wife, Carol Blue, and their daughter, Antonia, and two children from an earlier marriage, Alexander and Sophia.