A usual human being with very unusual thoughts, the phrase can be a short description of this wise soul namely Christopher Eric Hitchens. He is a British by birth and he got his American citizenship on his 58th birthday on April 13, 2007. His bestseller, internationally controversial book “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” reflects his unusual thought process about atheism and secularism. He claims himself to be a strong Atheist. Anything that can not be scientifically or logically defined is out of his dictionary and he can go to any level to prove the non-existence of such things.
Being a graduate from Balliol College, Oxford, with subjects like Philosophy, Politics and Economy he has the confidence of arguing strongly over his believes and criticizing people whom he doesn’t like and praising people whom he admires. He admired Thomas Jefferson, George Orwell and Thomas Paine in his books named “Thomas Jefferson: Author of America”, “Why Orwell Matters” and “Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man": A Biography” accordingly.
He criticized Bill Clinton in “No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton”, Henry Kissinger in “The Trial of Henry Kissinger” and Mother Teresa in “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice”. His career path also doesn’t have the usual graph. After graduating he first worked as a social science editor at Times Higher Education Supplement in London and was fired from the job. He then joined “New Statesman” where he could let his aggressiveness outburst and became famous for his high level criticizing skills.
He emigrated to US in 1981 and continued to work as journalist. He toured to 60 countries for his work. He got married in between to Eleni Meleagrou and had two children, Alexander and Sophia. However the marriage was not successful and ended with divorce. Later he again got married to Carol Blue, a writer and had one daughter Antonia in 1989. He was engaged in American political left till this time and his decision for leaving left was defined as political radicalism. He got ‘Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction” in 1991. He joined “Vanity Fair” as columnist in 1992 which he is still continuing.
His daring, controversial judgment on “9/11 conspiracy” and the Iraq war made him find himself among “Top 25 most influential liberals in the U.S. media”, listed by Forbes magazine in 2009. He still stands apart from the crowd for his renowned, exceptional debate and writing skills. He has been contributing for many publications occasionally; few of those are Slate, The Nation, Free Inquiry, The Atlantic etc. He was invited to many talk shows and lecture sessions to share his thoughts.
After his immeasurable contribution to the world of journalism, political debate and criticism, he finally penned his Autobiography named Hitch-22, which is awaiting its release in June 2010. Currently he lives in Washington D.C and is known to consume unbelievable amount of alcohol every day and he tells that the addiction keeps him going with the same pace always, for years gone and years to come.