Karen Cheung has a BA (Literary Studies) and LLB from the University of Hong Kong, and an MA in Creative Writing (New Prose Narratives) from Royal Holloway, University of London. Her work explores girlhood, psychogeography, and political trauma. Her memoir, The Impossible City, was published by Random House in 2022; it was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and The Economist. She has written fiction, essays, and reported features for The New York Times, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, Oxonian Review, Foreign Policy, and others. She was previously Associate Editor at Asia Art Archive, and now runs the literary journal Cicada.