By DAVID USBORNE - THE INDEPENDENT
Added: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:04:45 UTC

Thanks to Graham for the link.
Original link
Displaying his trademark directness and wit, Christopher Hitchens has opened up about his battle with cancer, reports David Usborne
Cancer may have robbed Christopher Hitchens of much of his hair. But no one could think it had taken any of his legendary knack for getting straight to the point.

"How am I? I am dying," he says as an opener to a conversation with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, recorded at his own home in Washington DC with his "dearest friend" Martin Amis, the novelist, more or less ambling into view midway through it, a bottle of beer in hand. "Everybody is, but the process has suddenly accelerated on me."

And in spite of the position he finds himself in, Hitchens sounds no less intellectually rigorous. To the question that each interviewer was bound to ask an orthodox atheist such as himself – is this the time to reconsider your views on God? – he offers a categorical reply: no.

It has been only a few short weeks since the English-American journalist, author, professional controversialist and curmudgeon was diagnosed with an especially fierce form of cancer. And even those whom Hitchens has infuriated – and they are legion – will surely find it hard not to be moved by his plight today. He is 61 years old, has three young children, whom he had hoped to see married one day. In video interviews recorded in the last several days with CNN and The Atlantic he looks worn out and quite altered.

Hitchens has also used the latest of his regular columns in Vanity Fair to fathom his new and unfamiliar predicament. "In whatever kind of a 'race' life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist," he notes. The piece, entitled Topic of Cancer, begins with his relating waking up in a New York hotel one day in June feeling more awful than ever in his life. (And he has, he will admit, had his share of groggy mornings.)
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TAGGED: CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, INTERVIEWS