What is Christopher Hitchens?
{{Infobox Writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox Writer/doc]] --> | name = Christopher Hitchens | image = Christopher Hitchens crop.jpg | caption = Christopher Hitchens, 2007 | pseudonym = | birth_name = Christopher Eric Hitchens | birth_date = {{birth date|1949|04|13|df=y}} | birth_place = [[Portsmouth]], [[Hampshire]], [[England]] | death_date = 15 December 2011 (aged 62) | death_place = [[Houston]], [[Texas]], [[United States]] | occupation = [[Author]], [[journalist]], [[activism|activist]], [[Pundit (expert)|pundit]] | alma_mater = [[Balliol College, Oxford]] | nationality = [[British people|British]], [[United States|American]] | period = | genre = [[Polemicism]], journalism, [[essay]]s, [[biography]], [[literary criticism]] | signature = | website = }} '''Christopher Eric Hitchens''' (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an [[English people|Anglo]]-[[Americans|American]] [[atheist]], writer and debater. He wrote for various [[magazine]]s including ''[[The Nation]]'', ''[[Free Inquiry]]'', ''[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]]'', and others. He was a supporter of the [[wikt:philosophical|philosophical]] movement [[humanism]]. Hitchens was educated at [[Balliol College, Oxford|Balliol College]], [[University of Oxford|Oxford]]. After [[graduation]] in 1970, he became a magazine writer. In 1982, he moved to [[Washington, D.C.]] In 1988, he learned from his grandmother that his mother was [[Jewish]], but had kept her [[religion]] a secret. Hitchens remained an [[atheist]] and did not adopt any religious faith. He did not write about his religious views until his 2007 book ''God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.''<ref name=wp>{{cite news|title=Religious skeptic and acerbic master of the contrarian essay|first=Matt|last=Schudel|newspaper=Washington Post|date=December 17, 2011|page=B6}}</ref> Hitchens tried to write from first-hand experience. To write his essays, he braved gunfire in [[Sarajevo]], he was jailed in [[Czechoslovakia]],