El Bastardo and nancynancy:

Apparently the chemo was largely effective, so he has recently undergone radiation therapy. Perhaps that explains the loss of hair, which was indeed growing back at the beginning of this year.

Comment 12 by david2 :

I like Hitch, but I can't understand why he still clings to the "Marxist" label? Affirming a "materialist conception of history", and opposing superstitious and religious rot, does not, in my eyes, make one a "Marxist".

I think a large part of the reason Hitchens still calls himself a Marxist is because he attributes his intellectual development to Marxist dialectic. There are a couple of interviews he did a few years back in which he elaborates (I can't find them at the moment). If I understand him correctly, even though he doesn't rely on Marxist arguments anymore, he relies on techniques of argument learnt from Marxist dialectic, so he regards himself as a Marxist in this capacity.