Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens was an influential Anglo-American journalist and author, known for his provocative and often controversial viewpoints. Born on April 13, 1949, in Portsmouth, England, he studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Balliol College, Oxford. Hitchens began his journalistic career in the UK, working for publications like The Times Higher Education Supplement and New Statesman, before moving to the United States in 1980. He became a prominent writer for The Nation, Vanity Fair, and Slate, among others, and authored a variety of books covering topics from politics to literature. Hitchens's perspective evolved significantly over his career; he initially held leftist views, later embracing neoconservative ideas, particularly after the events of September 11, 2001. He is also recognized for his staunch atheism and works such as "God Is Not Great," published in 2007. Hitchens was a prolific figure in media, frequently appearing on talk shows and receiving numerous accolades for his contributions to journalism. He passed away in 2011 in Houston, Texas.
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Christopher Hitchens
Writer
- Born: April 13, 1949
- Birthplace: Portsmouth, England
- Died: December 15, 2011
- Place of death: Houston, Texas
Biography
Christopher Hitchens was an Anglo-American journalist who produced significant work on both sides of the Atlantic. Hitchens was born on April 13, 1949, in Portsmouth, England, and earned a degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy, politics, and economics. He was the social science correspondent for The Times Higher Education Supplement from 1970 until 1971, a staff writer for the New Statesman from 1973 to 1981, and resumed writing for the latter in 1987.
In 1980, Hitchens relocated to the United States, and in 1981 he began two decades of writing “Minority Report” columns for The Nation magazine. He also regularly wrote columns in Vanity Fair and Slate and contributed reviews, essays, and columns to The Times Literary Supplement, Harper’s Magazine, The Spectator, New Left Review, Dissent, and other journals in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Hitchens also wrote or edited several books, some of them collections of his occasional pieces, including Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports (1988). His earliest books included Callaghan: The Road to Number Ten (1976; with Peter Kellner), a biography of former British prime minister James Callaghan; The Elgin Marbles: Should They Be Returned to Greece (1987); and The Monarchy (1990). His work had a broader scope than many of his contemporaries who wrote on current affairs and ranged from the subject of American-British relations (Blood, Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies, 1990), to literary studies (Why Orwell Matters, 2002), to works of history (Thomas Jefferson: Author of America, 2005). He also wrote about Cyprus, Zimbabwe, and the United Nations.
Hitchens was an independent and prolific writer, who usually wrote from a contrarian point of view and whose analyses nearly always were controversial and provocative, as demonstrated in The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (1995), No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton (1999), and The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001). In his earlier work, his views were clearly leftist. However, after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, when he began to support the idea of war against Islamic militants, he definitely changed political perspective and wrote more often from a neoconservative point of view, as in his book A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq, published in 2003. In his later years, he became a leading atheist, publishing God Is Not Great in 2007. His memoir Hitch-22 was published to wide praise in 2010. He taught and lectured widely, was frequently seen on political talk shows, and won awards for his journalistic work, including the 1991 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction and the 2007 National Magazine Award. He died in Houston Texas in 2011.
Bibliography
Carter, Graydon. "Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011: In Memoriam." Vanity Fair. Condé Nast, 15 Dec. 2011. Web. 21 June 2016.
"Christopher Hitchens." Biography.com. A&E Television Networks, 2016. Web. 21 June 2016.
Collier, Peter. "Christopher, for Better and for Worse." New Criterion 30.6 (2012): 13–16. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 June 2016.
Hitchens, Christopher. Hitch 22: Confessions and Contradictions. London: Atlantic, 2011. Print.
Parker, Ian. "He Knew He Was Right." New Yorker 82.33 (2006): 150–61. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 June 2016.