A Book to Burn: The story of a 400-year-old banned book

Two year after Giordano Bruno burnt in Rome. A heretic in Chinese history cut his throat in a Beijing jail, in 1602. He had been arrested on the charge of “daring to advocate a disordered Way, deluding the age, deceiving the people.” 敢倡亂道，惑世誣民. His name was Li Zhi 李贽 (1527–1602, courtesy name Zhuowu 卓吾). Even the recommended sentence of his “crime” was merely deportation to his home county under surveillance, he chose to end his life in the capital. Today, his tomb still stands in a park in Tongzhou, on Beijing’s eastern edge.For four hundred years, whenever Chinese have sought a native precedent for breaking with orthodoxy, they have reached for him. Heretics appear every generation. The question I find more interesting is how he became the icon.After Li Zhi died by suicide in 1602, he was initially buried in Beimachang Village (北马厂村), Tongzhou. In 1612, his close friend Jiao Hong inscribed the stele with "Tomb of Mr. Li Zhuowu" (李卓吾先生墓). Later, in 1983, the tomb was moved to its…