Invisible Valley

Like many Chinese writers of his generation, Su Wei spent his teenage years being “re-educated” through farm labor in the countryside, working for ten years on a rubber plantation in the mountains of tropical Hainan Island. He is known for his nonfiction essays as well as for his highly imaginative novels, which are seen as unique in their treatment of the Cultural Revolution. He left China in 1989, and since 1997 he has taught Chinese language and literature at Yale University. The Invisible Valley is his first book to be translated into English.Austin Woerner is a Chinese-English literary translator. His works include two volumes of poetry, Doubled Shadows: Selected Poetry of Ouyang Jianghe and Phoenix, and a novel, The Invisible Valley by Su Wei. He served as English translation editor for the innovative Chinese literary journal Chutzpah!, and co-edited the short fiction anthology Chutzpah!: New Voices from China. He holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Yale and an MFA in creative writing from the New School. He lives and works in Shanghai, China.

“The Invisible Valley is an extraordinary novel. It opens, even to Chinese readers, the world of a southern hinterland, a world of rubber groves, mystery and superstition.  At the same time, the novel is intimately rooted in China's modern history and resonates with universal implications. Austin Woerner's vivid and supple translation has made it even more readable.” — Ha Jin, winner of the National Book Award"Su Wei’s The Invisible Valley is a rich romantic story told with sharp humor and filled with vivid descriptions of the lush, dense highlands of a remote Chinese tropical island. Translated with a light hand and subtle wit by Austin Woerner, the novel moves in quick graceful stages after its hapless young hero, Lu Beiping, discovers to his dismay that he’s been ghost-married to a dead girl. Bizarre folkways, rituals and superstitions abound, along with hints of a great serpent awakening. It’s a joy to read such a strange, wonderful tale by a Chinese master in this brisk and lucid translation."— Patrick McGrath, author of Asylum“Su Wei’s remarkable novel The Invisible Valley has drawn praise in Chinese literary circles both inside and outside China. Su Wei belongs to the generation of Chinese writers who ‘went down to the countryside’ at the behest of Chairman Mao in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his novel was inspired by his personal experience in the wild, semi-tropical hills of Hainan Island in China’s far south. The power of this natural background—typhoons, jungles, giant snakes, pungent odors, and more—pervades the work and melds into the vivid human characters that populate it.” — Perry Link, Emeritus Professor of Chinese, Princeton University

• Chapter 1: Ghost BrideChapter 2: Smoke on the MountainsChapter 3: “Pa”Chapter 4: At the Water’s EdgeChapter 5: The Haunted GroveChapter 6: The HollowChapter 7: The FloodChapter 8: The Ancient TabletChapter 9: Amaranthine RosewoodChapter 10: CockfightChapter 11: TorchesChapter 12: Spirit FlightChapter 13: Night MusicChapter 14: Snakeclouds