Karen Jennings is a South African writer whose novel An Island was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021, with the follow-up longlisted for The Women’s Prize in 2025. She currently lectures at North-West University. She received the K. Sello Duiker Memorial Award in 2021, and has won the Africa Region Prize of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition.

Karen founded The Island Prize for unpublished African authors to help them get published globally. Now in its fifth year the prize has helped authors from all over the continent.