In 1968, at the height of China’s Cultural Revolution, 36-year-old poet and journalist Lin Zhao was executed inside Shanghai’s Tilanqiao Prison for her open and unbending opposition to what she called the “tyranny and slavery” of Chinese communism under Mao. In this lecture, historian Xi Lian discusses the life and writings of Lin Zhao who became, in the words of the late Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, “the only voice of freedom left for contemporary China.”
About Xi Lian
Xi Lian, Professor of World Christianity at Duke Divinity School, is the author of Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, A Martyr in Mao’s China (2018). His other books include The Conversion of Missionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907-1932 (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997) and Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China (Yale University Press, 2010).
The views expressed here and in Maxwell Institute publications are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Maxwell Institute, Brigham Young University, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” (D&C 88:118)