Atheist and Dying

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Christopher Hitchens On His Cancer: "The Statistics In My Case Are Very Poor"


Joe Pompeo | Aug. 6, 2010, 7:30 AM

Joe Pompeo is a reporter at The Business Insider. He was previously an editor and reporter at The New York Observer.




Sixty-one-year-old British-American author-journalist Christopher Hitchens gave his first interview since being diagnosed with esophageal cancer on Thursday night's edition of "Anderson Cooper 360."

The effects of his chemotherapy were visible as he chatted soberly with Cooper about everything from waking up one day "feeling like death," to his prognosis, to prayer (Hitchens is an atheist), his new book (the promotional tour for which was recently cut short) and the controversy over the mosque at Ground Zero.

In the clip below, Hitchens discusses his odds of survival:

COOPER: So, you are hopeful?

HITCHENS: Well I'm not fatalistic, I'm not resigned, but I'm realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it's a certainty you'll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it’s an awful process. That you can't escape, you're going to get that no matter what. Then the torture may or may not be worth it or it will be torture by execution.

Powerful stuff, and there's more where that came from in Hitchens' latest essay for Vanity Fair, titled "Topic of Cancer."

Here's the video from CNN:

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Christopher Hitchens May Be Dying Of Cancer, But He Has No Regrets About Smoking And Boozing


Joe Pompeo | Aug. 17, 2010, -- 2:56 PM

Joe Pompeo is a reporter at The Business Insider. He was previously an editor and reporter at The New York Observer.




Last we heard from Christopher Hitchens, he was telling Anderson Cooper about how the survival rate for the type of esophageal cancer he has is poor.

But the contrarian British/American author and journalist has no regrets about all the smoking and drinking he's done in his 61 years.

That's what Hitchens told Charlie Rose in an interview that aired Friday night, and which Politico recaps here.

"All the time, I've felt that life is a wager and that I probably was getting more out of leading a bohemian existence as a writer than I would have if I didn't," he said. "Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that — or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation — is worth it to me. So I was knowingly taking a risk."

Watch the video below: