Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011
Christopher Hitchens was a wit, a charmer, and a troublemaker, and to those who knew him well, he was a gift from, dare I say it, God. He died today at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, after a punishing battle with esophageal cancer, the same disease that killed his father.
— Graydon Carter memorializes Christopher Hitchens. Elsewhere, so does Andrew Sullivan.