Christopher Hitchens' most recent book is God is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything, on the NY Times best seller list since it was published in 2007. The Economist Magazine says of Hitchens "A short list of the greatest living conversationalists in English would probably have to include Christopher Hitchens... Great brilliance, fantastic powers of recall and quick wit are clearly valuable in sustaining conversation at these cosmic levels. Charm may be helpful too... "

Hitchens is the author of many books including The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favorite Fetish... Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies... International Territory: The UN After Fifty Years... The Palestine Question... and A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq.

As a foreign correspondent and travel writer, Hitchens has written from more than 60 countries on all five continents - from Afghanistan, Albania and Angola through Dublin, India, Iran, Iraq and Japan, to Vietnam, Western Sahara, Xylophagou and Zimbabwe.

Hitchens was a columnist for Vanity Fair, The Nation, and Slate. He is also a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times Book Review, and the Atlantic Monthly, among many other publications.

His essays and articles have been collected or anthologized in Best American Essays of 2001, Best American Travel Writing of 2002, Best American Political Writing of 2004, and "best of" collections published by: The London Review of Books, The Spectator, The Nation, The New Statesman, The Weekly Standard and Atlantic Monthly.

Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, England and educated at Cambridge and Oxford. He has an Honors Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He emigrated to the United States in 1981.

NOTE: Bio is as it appeared in the Forum program from January 29, 2009.