Karen Ann King-Aribisala was born in 1953 in Georgetown, Guyana. She is a poet, novelist, and short story writer.
King-Aribisala grew up in Nigeria, attending the Ibadan International School and studying abroad in Barbados, Italy and London.
Her collection of stories, Our Wife and Other Stories, and her novel, The Hangman's Game, won the Commonwealth Writers' Prizes, Best First Book Africa (1991) and Best Book Africa (2008), respectively.
She currently lives with her husband in Nigeria and is Associate Professor of English at the University of Lagos.