Hitch

Christopher Hitchens passed away on Dec 15, 2011. He was 62.

He was also a brilliant writer, a learned speaker and an intellectual bad-ass.

The human race is lesser today, that he is no longer among us.

I have put it this way a few times now: If we are all meant to light a single candle rather than curse the darkness, Christopher Hitchens lit a bonfire of righteous indignation against the forces that would keep us ignorant, foolish and fearful of the great sky daddy watching over us, ready to smite.

His sheer cerebral firepower always left me breathless and humbled. Though I try not to say this arrogantly, Mr Hitchens was one of the few people I was aware of that I would instantly agree was much, much smarter than I am. Reading his writing was like slipping into a hot tub almost-but-not-quite-too-hot: daunting, bracing and deeply pleasurable. Even when I totally disagreed with his conclusions (women can be fucking funny, Mr Hitchens) I would always have what amounted to a literary orgasm reading his gorgeous, dense, nuanced and witty non-fiction works.

I always learned.

Thank you, Christopher Hitchens. Thank you for teaching me. Thank you for making me a better writer. Thank you for inspiring me to read works I'd never cared to explore. Thank you for your example of fearless, humourous, unapologetic intellectualism.

Thank you for dying without recanting your fearless atheism.

We needed you.