The great essayist and journalist Christopher Hitchens has passed away. The 62-year-old author wrote a number of books, including God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, and Hitch-22: A Memoir.

Vanity Fair published an eulogy for the author, centered on his recent work: “in the last 12 months, he produced for this magazine a piece on U.S.-Pakistani relations in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, a portrait of Joan Didion, an essay on the Private Eye retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a prediction about the future of democracy in Egypt, a meditation on the legacy of progressivism in Wisconsin, and a series of frank, graceful, and exquisitely written essays in which he chronicled the physical and spiritual effects of his disease.”

Years before joining GalleyCat, this editor was lucky enough to meet the author and record a story about Hitchens’ life as a young writer. Skip to the 25-second mark of the video link to listen to his story. Earlier this year, Hitchens gave a challenging reading list to an 8-year-old girl–an inspiring legacy from the late writer.