On Wednesday, April 9, 2025, students and faculty gathered at the Library’s Faculty Collaboration Commons for The Red Chamber Project, a special event featuring literary translator and former Duke Kunshan University (DKU) lecturer Austin Woerner. With refreshments and lively discussion, the event offered a fresh look at Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the most treasured works of Chinese literature.
The session began with participants sharing their personal experiences with Dream of the Red Chamber. Some recalled first encountering the story through illustrated books, while others noted how the novel’s influence reached across cultures, as international students discovered it through their Chinese roommates.
A highlight of the conversation was a student’s appreciation for how Mr. Woerner approached the novel’s iconic opening. Rather than translating the line “作者自云…” (“the author says…”) literally, he rendered the mythic backstory directly, giving the introduction a vivid, storytelling quality that felt more like an ancient legend than a narrative aside.
Sharing his motivation, Mr. Woerner revealed that the project began as a way to make Dream of the Red Chamber more accessible to his own child. Over time, he translated the work during fragments of free time, driven by a deep passion for the novel’s beauty and complexity. Currently, the first three chapters of his translation have been published. Future installments are on the horizon, and we highly encourage readers to subscribe to his Substack (https://substack.com/@austinwoerner) to receive updates and offer feedback.
