News at Eleven: Harold Pinter had a very public cancer.

He wrote about it, talked about it, made it a metaphor--and yesterday, three months later, he died of it.

In 2002 he turned a nurse's remark about "cells which have forgotten how to die" into a poem.

I need to see my tumour dead
A tumour which forgets to die
But plans to murder me instead.

from The Times Literary Supplement: Harold Pinter: Exit a master

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