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Karma: 52 |  | Cyprus played key role in Hitchens' life
« Thread Started on Dec 17, 2011, 1:00pm » | |
WHEN MOST people talk about Christopher Hitchens, the words ‘radical’, ‘God’, ‘erudite’ and ‘Iraq’ usually come up, though not in that particular order.
What many people don’t know is that you can’t talk about the life and times of this outspoken intellectual powerhouse without bringing Cyprus into the picture.
The island unwittingly played a huge role in his life, both professionally and personally, particularly in his formative adult years when he began exploring and experimenting with a sense of political injustice. After graduating from Oxford, and starting a career in journalism, Hitchens came to Cyprus in the 1970s to report on the conflict here for the New Statesman and New Left Review.
Apart from helping him earn his stripes in polemic debate, the island also invited him to explore love and marriage.
In 1981, he married his first wife, Greek Cypriot Eleni Meleagrou, having two children, Alexander and Sophia. The marriage ended after eight years, but it is understood Hitchens remained on good terms with his Cypriot family until his death.
In 1984, he published a book on the de facto partition of Cyprus, dedicated to his wife Eleni. The Cyprus Mail got its hands on a 1989 second edition titled, Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger.
Hitchens’ account of the island’s division effectively points the finger at four NATO powers, Britain, the US, Greece and Turkey, and describes partition as an “absurdity” which “reflected only the strategic requirements of outside powers”.
“The Cypriots are the only Europeans to have undergone colonial rule, guerrilla war, civil war and modern technological war, on their own soil, since 1945,” he writes.
Hitchens travelled to Cyprus frequently and was known among foreign correspondents for liking his tipple. Years later, he confessed in Vanity Fair that his daily intake of alcohol was enough “to kill or stun the average mule”.
The acknowledgements section of his Cyprus book reads like a Who’s Who of the island’s key players, with thanks given to Makarios, Rauf Denktash, Dr Vassos Lyssarides, Glafcos Clerides, Tassos Papadopoulos, Alpay Durduran, Osker Ozgur and Dr Fazil Kucuk.
The former diplomat and current rector of the University of Nicosia Michael Attalides is mentioned as a ‘friend’, while the cabinet-appointed Mari blast investigator Polys Polyviou was described as “a lawyer’s lawyer”.
Polyviou met him in the late 1960s at Oxford where he started off as “an extreme left-winger”.
“Strange as it may appear we became friends at Oxford,” the Cypriot lawyer told the Cyprus Mail.
“He was a remarkable polemicist, humanist controversialist. Most of all, he loved a heated debate, discussion and enraging people, all to the good.
“I like to call him the modern Jonathan Swift who wrote Gulliver’s Travels. He wanted to engage with people for the sake of engaging with people, irritating and annoying them, the mark of a democrat,” he said.
Polyviou notes that Cyprus was one of the first things he became passionate about after university. “Cyprus was one of the things he cared most about; he was genuinely interested and it was Cyprus that led him to the main hatred of Kissinger that he had.”
Attalides met him at a conference the Cypriot diplomat had organised on the Cyprus problem. “He was a fantastic person, one of the most erudite and cultured people I’ve ever met,” he said.
“He invited me to a launch of his book on the Parthenon Marbles in London. I remember Salmon Rushdie walking in to his launch when he was supposed to be still in hiding,” said Attalides.
The former diplomat retold how, during one of his latter visits to Cyprus, Hitchens made a witty comment that the Cyprus problem would never be solved, as it would prove too dreary to work out all the details.
When Hitchens learned he had cancer, his ex-wife reportedly said of him: “He is fearless.”
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redbaron
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Karma: 352 | | Re: Cyprus played key role in Hitchens' life
« Reply #1 on Dec 17, 2011, 1:13pm » | |
his loss has brought me to his writing, and the many lectures/speeches on youtube. I didn't read much of his when he was alive (isnt that often the case  ), but he always had something interesting to say.
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redbaron
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Karma: 352 | | Re: Cyprus played key role in Hitchens' life
« Reply #2 on Jan 4, 2012, 3:17pm » | |
His book God is Not Great, is on sale for 99p (kindle edition) at amazon.co.uk today.
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