Escritor e crítico Christopher Hitchens morre aos 62 anos

Christopher Hitchens speaking in 2007 at the TAM5 conference in Las Vegas.

British-born author, journalist and political commentator Christopher Hitchens has died aged XX on DATETIME-XX due to esophageal cancer (CHECK XX).

Hitchens was born on April 13, 1949 to Yvonne and Eric Hitchens who met through naval service during World War II. Christopher was educated at Leys School in Cambridge and graduated with a third class honours degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Balliol College, Oxford.

In 1965, he joined the Labour party but was soon expelled. He wrote for a variety of magazines on the left including the International Socialist magazine, and New Statesman where he met and became friends with the novelists Martin Amis and Ian McEwan.

In 1981, Hitchens emigrated to the United States and worked for The Nation. In 1997, he started writing for Vanity Fair, and also produced a monthly essay for the Atlantic Monthly.

He has written numerous books and essays critical of well-known figures. Of Bill Clinton, he wrote a book called 'No One Left To Lie To'; more famously, he was fiercely critical of Mother Teresa in a book titled 'The Missionary Position', which alleged that Teresa [XX].

In 2007, Hitchens wrote 'God Is Not Great', a bestselling book which takes a critical view on religion. Following this, he has been dubbed a 'New Atheist' along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and others, and has kept up a steady schedule of public debates and TV appearances. Following the death of Jerry Falwell, the American evangelical preacher, Hitchens wrote a stringent attack on him which included the much-repeated line "if you gave him an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox".