Ian McEwan about Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens
1949 - 2011
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christopher_Hitchens_crop.jpg)

A friend told me about an article from NY Times, authored by Ian McEwan (who wrote Atonement), and talking about a consummate writer and brilliant friend: Christopher Hitchens. It was their last encounter. Very ill, Christopher Hitchens didn't want flowers or grapes; he wanted conversation and presence. And all silences were useful.

I want to quote here two fragments of this article:

... Where others might have beguiled themselves with thoughts of divine purpose (why me?) and dreams of an afterlife, Christopher had all of literature....

and

... because we had started to talk about old times in Manhattan, he wanted to quote and celebrate James Fenton’s German Requiem: How comforting it is, once or twice a year,/To get together and forget the old times ...

Here is the whole article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/opinion/christopher-hitchens-consummate-writer-brilliant-friend.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

(A Life in Books)