George Orwell's Legacy

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BEHIND THE STORY

English-born and Oxford-educated, Christopher Hitchens has lived in Washing-ton, D.C., for 20 years, writing regularly for Harper's and Vanity Fair. He was a columnist at The Nation for 20 years but recently resigned, claiming the leftist journal had become an "echo chamber of those who truly believe that John Ashcroft is a greater menace than Osama bin Laden." Hitchens has made a career of deflating prominent reputations. Henry Kissinger (whom Hitchens calls a war criminal), Bill Clinton (a liar), and even the late Mother Teresa (a "fanatical fundamentalist") have felt the wrath of a scathing and witty polemicist with a special animosity for what he calls "liberal illusions."

Though he's been a frequent critic of American foreign policy, Hitchens responded with outrage to the attacks of September 11-and denounced other leftists who in his view were too soft on the terrorists. As he said in an interview for the Conversations with History cable TV series produced at the University of California in Berkeley, "I personally find when there's a confrontation between everything I love-scientific inquiry, reason, cosmopolitanism, secularism, emancipation of women . . . and everything I hate-Stone Age fascism, religious bullshit, and so on-it's a no-brainer. I know exactly which side I'm on, and I knew right away."

Hitchens is the author, most recently, of Why Orwell Matters, published this fall by Basic Books. 

From L.A. Weekly (May 3, 2002). Subscriptions: $70/yr. (52 issues) from Box 4315, Los Angeles, CA 90078.

CAFE UTNE: Discuss George Orwell in the Literature forum at www.utne.com/salon.aspx

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