Polemicist had written frequently and eloquently about his battle with cancer
Polemicist and author Christopher Hitchens died on Thursday after battling oesophageal cancer since the spring of 2010. Armed with a combative style and a fierce wit, Hitchens was known for training his sights on targets as varied as Mother Theresa, Bill Clinton, and religion as a whole. In the last months of his life, Hitchens wrote often about the cancer that would eventually kill him, insisting it had led him to question neither his rabid atheism, nor his penchant for cigarettes and alcohol. Hitchens died at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 62.