Karen Jennings is a South African writer whose novel An Island waslonglisted for the Booker Prize in 2021, with the follow-up longlisted for TheWomen's Prize in 2025. She was writer-in-residence as a post-doctoral fellow atthe Laboratory for the Economics of Africa's Past, Stellenbosch University. Karencurrently lectures at North-West University. She received the K. Sello DuikerMemorial Award in 2021, and has won the Africa Region Prize of the CommonwealthShort Story Competition. Her first novel, Finding Soutbek, was shortlisted forthe Etisalat Prize. Travels with my Father, a memoir, has been a set universitytext in South Africa. Karen founded The Island Prize for unpublished Africanauthors to help them get published globally. Now in its fifth year the prizehas helped authors from all over the continent.
