Between 19 he was at The Financial Times, where he worked (variously) 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. 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.īefore becoming a writer Sanghera (among other things) worked at a burger chain, a hospital laundry, a market research firm, a sewing factory and a literacy project in New York. His third book, Empireland: How Imperialism Has Been Shaped Modern Britain became an instant Sunday Times bestseller on release in 2021, was named Book of the Year (non-fiction: narrative) 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. He 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. He entered the education system unable to speak English but, after attending Wolverhampton Grammar School, graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge with a first class degree in English Language and Literature. Sathnam Sanghera was born to Punjabi parents in the West Midlands in 1976.

Empire sathnam sanghera