The widow and the literary agent of Christopher Hitchens are urging his acquaintances not to cooperate with a planned biography of the late firebrand author, the New York Times reports.
Carol Blue-Hitchens, who was married to Hitchens for 20 years, and Steve Wasserman, his agent, sent an email to family and friends of the writer, reading, “We are aware that a self-appointed would-be biographer, one Stephen Phillips, is embarked on a book on Christopher. We read his proposal and are dismayed by the coarse and reductive approach. We have no confidence in this attempt at the man in full. We are not cooperating and we urge you to refuse all entreaties by Mr. Phillips or his publisher, W.W. Norton.”
Hitchens was a controversial journalist and critic known for his outspoken atheism and support of free speech. The author of books like God Is Not Great and Why Orwell Matters, he died of pneumonia, a complication of esophageal cancer, in 2011.
Phillips’ planned book, which he’s writing under the working title Pamphleteer: The Life and Times of Christopher Hitchens, is currently scheduled for publication in 2022.
Biographer David Nasaw criticized the email in an article for the Nation, where Hitchens wrote for 30 years. “Hitchens does not belong to his widow or to Wasserman,” he wrote. “We don’t get any closer to understanding a life and its times—which are our times—by restricting access to those who might wish to examine and interpret them.”
The email from Blue-Hitchens and Wasserman didn’t sway Hitchens’ brother, Peter Hitchens, who said he was cooperating with Phillips on the biography.
“My view has been for a long time that there ought to be a biography,” Peter Hitchens told the Times. “And as far as I can tell, this guy seems to be a straightforward person with a good record as a writer, intelligent, knowledgeable. Why not him?”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
