Readers should remember that it is often the censor who draws our attention to the hidden virtues of a text.

In one of the earliest instances of book burning we know (but certainly not the first), in the year 213 BCE, the Chinese emperor Shih Huang-ti issued an edict ordering that all the books in his realm should be destroyed. In one of the latest instances (but certainly not the last), in September 21, Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey was burned at the gates of Mumbai University by students belonging to the right-wing Shiv Sena party. Between the Chi