Roger Ebert reveals he has cancer again

Eminent US film critic Roger Ebert has revealed that he is once again battling cancer.

The writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, who was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, said that he would be taking a 'leave of presence' to deal with his treatment.

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“What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away,” he wrote in a blog for the newspaper.

“My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me.

“What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasised about doing - reviewing only the movies I want to review.”

“It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital. So on bad days I may write about the vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness.

“So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I'll see you at the movies.”

It emerged that his cancer had returned after he was hospitalised for what was a suspected to be hip fracture just before Christmas.

After being diagnosed in 2002 with papillary thryroid cancer, Ebert had his lower jaw and salivary glands removed in 2006, leaving him unable to speak, and eat or drink normally.