Jan Wagner was born in Hamburg, Germany. He is a poet and translator of poetry from English to German, including the work of Charles Simic, James Tate, Simon Armitage, Jo Shapcott, Louis MacNeice, and Kevin Young. He studied English and American Studies in Hamburg, Dublin and Berlin. He has worked as a freelance reviewer for various newspapers such as Frankfurter Rundschau and Tagesspiegel, and he co-published the international literature "box" DIE AUSSENSEITE DES ELEMENTES until 2003.
He has published five poetry collections, most recently AUSTRALIEN (2010, Berlin Verlag). He is the recipient of numerous German awards for poetry including the Friedrich-Holderlin Prize (2010), the Ernst-Meister Award for Poetry (2005), and a Heinrich Heine Fellowship (2004). In English, Wagner's work appears in the anthology 20th CENTURY GERMAN POETRY, edited by Michael Hoffmann (FSG, 2008). He has lived in Berlin since 1995. Wagner hosted a reading at The Betsy with sponsorship from the German Consulate and Florida International University.