Sathnam Sanghera is a British political journalist and author, finding success with his book EmpireLand: How Modern Britain is Shaped by its Imperial Past, his Sunday Times Bestseller.
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Sathnam has been shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards twice, for his memoir The Boy With The Topknot and his novel Marriage Material, the former being adapted by BBC Drama in 2017 and named Mind Book of the Year in 2009.
His third book, Empireland: How Imperialism Has Been Shaped Modern Britain became an instant Sunday Times bestseller on release in 2021, was named a Book of the Year at the 2022 British Books Awards, and inspired Empire State of Mind, the acclaimed two-part documentary for Channel 4 for which he earned a Best Presenter shortlisting at the 2022 Grierson Awards. It also inspired Stolen History: The Truth about the British Empire and How it Shaped Us, which went to No 1 on several children’s books charts when it was released in 2023.
He has won numerous awards for his journalism, including Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2002, Media Commentator of the year in the 2015 Comment Awards and the Edgar Wallace Trophy for Writing of the Highest Quality at the 2017 London Press Club Awards. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2016, and elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of his contribution to historical scholarship in 2023.
Before becoming a writer, Sanghera worked at a burger chain, a hospital laundry, a market research firm, a sewing factory and a literacy project in New York. Between 1998 and 2006 he was at The Financial Times, where he worked as a news reporter in the UK and the US, specialised in writing about the media industries, worked across the paper as Chief Feature Writer, and wrote an award-winning weekly business column.
Sathnam joined The Times as a columnist and feature writer in 2007 and is a regular contributor on national radio and TV, having appeared on programmes including Have I Got News For You and BBC Front Row Late and presented a range of documentaries, including The Massacre That Shook The Empire on Channel 4, which was shortlisted for best Factual TV show at the 2019 Asian Media Awards, and Empire State of Mind, described by The Daily Telegraph as “necessary”, The Mail on Sunday as “riveting and moving”, and The Sun as “personable, funny, measured and… extremely powerful”.
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