Austin Woerner

Wellesley High School Author: Austin Woerner (2004)

        Austin Woerner is a Chinese-English literary translator. He has translated a novel, The Invisible Valley by Su Wei, and two volumes of poetry, Doubled Shadows: Selected Poetry of Ouyang Jianghe, and Ouyang Jianghe’s book-length poem Phoenix. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, the Asian American Literary Review, the Kenyon Review, and elsewhere.

            Formerly the English translation editor for the innovative Chinese literary journal Chutzpah!, Austin also co-edited the short fiction anthology Chutzpah!: New Voices from China. Before coming to Duke Kunshan University he taught creative writing, academic writing, and translation at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.

            He also penned a brilliant poem on October 21, 2004 when the Red Sox beat the Yankees in Game 7 of the ALCS:

The birds fell silent in the trees

The wind froze and hung in the air

The clock choked and the second-hand hesitated

The earth opened up

And a great roaring battered the skies