Wen Jieruo was born in 1927 in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, and is a well-known translator of Japanese Literature in China, and is fluent in both English and Japanese.

Wen graduated from Tsinghua University in 1950 with a degree in English. Wen worked at People's Literature Publishing House for many years in different positions, including editor, senior editor and translator of Japanese literature.

Wen rendered a great number of Japanese literary works into Chinese for almost five decades, including 14 novels, 18 novellas as well as over 100 novelettes. Such outstanding Japanese writers as Yasushi Inoue, Yasunari Kawabata, Tsutomu Mizukami and Yukio Mishima became popular in China due to Wen's translation.

Wen has a long list of works to her credit, including Saint of Mt. Koya (included in the book series Selected Novels of Kyoka Izumi), Selected Novels of Ryunosuke Akutagawa, The Decay of the Angel and Ulysses (Ulysses was translated by Wen Jieruo and her husband Xiao Qian).

In 2004, Wen was awarded the title of "Senior Translator" by the Translators Association of China.

She received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation at the Second National Translation Conference in Beijing on Dec. 6, 2012.