It has been only a few short weeks since the English-American journalist, author, professional controversialist and curmudgeon was diagnosed with an especially fierce form of cancer. And even those whom Hitchens has infuriated – and they are legion – will surely find it hard not to be moved by his plight today. He is 61 years old, has three young children, whom he had hoped to see married one day. In video interviews recorded in the last several days with CNN and The Atlantic he looks worn out and quite altered.

Hitchens has also used the latest of his regular columns in Vanity Fair to fathom his new and unfamiliar predicament. "In whatever kind of a 'race' life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist," he notes. The piece, entitled Topic of Cancer, begins with his relating waking up in a New York hotel one day in June feeling more awful than ever in his life. (And he has, he will admit, had his share of groggy mornings.)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/hitchens-were-all-dying-with-me-its-accelerated-2050136.html.