Karen Jennings

Karen Jennings is a South African author, whose 2020 book An Island was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. Her debut novel, Finding Soutbek, was shortlisted for the inaugural Etisalat Prize for African Fiction. In 2014 her short story collection, Away from the Dead, was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International short story competition. Her memoir, Travels with my Father, was published in 2016, and in 2018 she released her debut poetry collection, Space Inhabited by Echoes. Her historical mining novel, Upturned Earth, was published in 2019. Jennings works with the mentorship programmes run by Writivism and Short Story Day Africa, both of which promote writing in Africa.