In partnership with Lancaster University, Litfest is proud to announce a new venture –

Our inaugural speaker is Sathnam Sanghera, whose outstanding book Empireland changed the way we think about history and Britain’s place in the world, winning the 2022 British Book Award for Narrative Nonfiction and inspiring the Channel 4 documentary Empire State of Mind. His latest book, Empireworld, has just been published and has been described by Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads, as ‘a book for our times’.

In his Lancaster History Lecture, Sanghera will speak to the importance of history and the humanities in understanding and shaping the world – and discuss the legacies of the British Empire across the globe.

After the lecture he will be in conversation with Will Pettigrew, followed by an in-person and online Q&A.

Sathnam Sanghera was born to Punjabi parents in the West Midlands in 1976. 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. He has been shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards twice, for his memoir The Boy With The Topknot and his novel Marriage Material. His third book, Empireland, became an instant Sunday Times bestseller on release in 2021. His latest book is Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe.

Will Pettigrew is Professor of History at Lancaster University. He is the author of Freedom’s Debt: The Royal African Company and the Politics of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1672–1752  and is working on a book about the significance of British slave traders in British history.

Supported by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the History Department at Lancaster University.

Will Pettigrew's books will be available to purchase from our online bookshop soon.

The Lancaster History Lecture–Sathnam Sanghera How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe in conversation with Will Pettigrew