Chen Ran (Chinese: 陈染; pinyin: Chén Rǎn) is a Chinese avant-garde writer. Most of her works appeared in the 1990s and often deal with Chinese feminism.
Chen Ran was born in Beijing in April, 1962. Her parents divorced when she was in high school and she since then lived with her mother. As a child she studied music, but when she was 18 her interests turned to literature.
Chen Ran studied Chinese language and literature in Beijing Normal University from 1982 to 1986 and graduated when she was 23. She remained with the university as a teacher after graduation for the next four and a half years. She also lectured as an exchange scholar at various foreign universities including Melbourne University in Australia, the University of Berlin in Germany, and London, Oxford, and Edinburgh universities in the UK. Between 1987 and 1989, she published a series of surrealistic short stories with strong philosophical undertones.
She now lives and writes in Beijing. She has published several short story collections and is a member of the Chinese Writers Association. She has won number of prizes, such as the first Contemporary China Female Writer's Award.