She joined the Qiancao Literary Society and published her first work Wo suo qiwang de xin funü ("The New Women of My Ideal") in 1923.
[2] In 1942 she attended the Yan'an Forum with Mao Zedong to determine Chinese communist policy on the Arts.
[6]: xxi Mao published a paper entitled "Talks at the Ya'nan Conference on Arts and Literature".
This was an important document of national policy which Chen supported and this was the basis for a major cultural rectification programme.
Later that year, she joined the Chinese Communist Party and her application was swiftly approved with only a note to study more Lenin.
[2] Chen also translated some works by Balzac and Charles de Gaulle's L'Appel from French into Chinese.