Sathnam Sanghera

Sathnam Sanghera was born to Punjabi parents in Wolverhampton and studied English Language and Literature at Christ’s College, Cambridge. After graduating with a first-class degree, he embarked on a career in journalism, working first as a reporter and feature writer for the Financial Times and subsequently becoming a columnist and feature writer for the Times. Sanghera has won numerous accolades for his journalistic work, including Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2002 and Media Commentator of the Year in the 2015 Comment Awards.

Sanghera’s first book The Boy with the Topknot – his memoir of growing up Sikhi in the West Midlands – came out in 2009; it was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award the same year and was adapted for BBC Two in 2017. Next Sanghera published the novel Marriage Material (2016), which was followed by his bestselling Empireland in 2021 – a capacious and eye-opening examination of how imperialism has shaped modern Britain – which was named a Book of the Year at the 2022 British Books Awards. It inspired him to write Stolen History, a book on the same subject for children, which came out in 2023 and was shortlisted for Foyles Book of the Year. Sanghera’s 2024 book Empireworld explores the role and repercussions of British imperialism on a global scale.