1971년 서울에서 태어나 한양대 신문방송학과와 서울예대 문예창작과를 졸업했다. 2000년 동아일보 신춘문예에 단편 「바늘」이 당선되며 작품활동을 시작했고, 소설집 『바늘』 『명랑』 『그녀의 눈물 사용법』과 장편소설 『잘 가라, 서커스』가 있다. 신동엽창작상, 올해의 예술상 등을 수상했다.

Although Cheon Woon-young is a young author with only two volumes of short stories, she is considered a pioneer of a new trend in Korean literature and her works have been a subject of much analysis. Cheon’s works depart significantly from such thematic concerns as love, extramarital affairs and urban or middle-class sensibilities that characterized many of the fictional works by female writers in the 1990s. The women in Cheon’s fictional world are defined not by their reaction to the traditional views of women but by their hedonistic tendencies and the feral, primeval instincts they possess. Such vision of womanhood is often expressed through visceral and visually shocking images.